Chapter - the EC Subsector Elections on 9 July 2000

CHAPTER 9

THE EC SUBSECTOR ELECTIONS ON 9 JULY 2000

Section 1 :

The Sectors and the Subsectors

Section 2 :

The Nomination of Candidates

Section 3 :

The Poll

Section 4 :

The OMR

Section 5

The Count

Section 6

The EAC Members’ Visits

Section 7

The Results

Section 1 : The Sectors and the Subsectors

9.1Most of the 800 members of the EC were returned by election from four sectors. Each sector returned 200 members. These four sectors were sub-divided into 38 subsectors. The sectors, subsectors and the number of EC members to be returned by each subsector, as set out in Part I of Schedule 2 to the LegCo Ord, are reproduced in Appendix IIfor easy reference. There were three subsectors which needed not return the EC members by election: the NPC subsector and the LegCo subsector, since the Hong Kong deputies to the NPC and the LegCo members were ex-officio members of the EC; and the religious subsector the EC members from which were to be returned by way of nomination.

Section 2 : The Nomination of Candidates

9.2During the nomination period from 31 May to 7 June 2000, the ROs of all the 35 subsectors received a total of 911 nominations of candidates. Of these 911 nominated candidates:

(a)three withdrew their nominations before the close of nomination (two from the Agriculture and Fisheries subsector and one from the Higher Education subsector);

(b)three from the Health Services subsector were ruled invalidly nominated by the RO due to insufficient number of subscribers;

(d)723 validly nominated were to contest in the remaining 25 subsectors and two sub-subsectors for 482 seats in the EC.

9.3For the religious subsector, there were altogether 72 nominations received by the RO, which far exceeded the required number of members to be returned by this subsector,ie 40. The excessive nominations came from two religious denominations or designated bodies: the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Christian Council. To arrive at the required number of members to be returned by each of these two designated bodies, the decision was made by drawing lots, which was conducted in the morning on 12 June 2000 by the RO, assisted by staff of the REO, in the presence of the representatives of the two designated bodies.

Section 3 : The Poll

9.4The subsector elections in 2000 were held on a Sunday (9 July 2000). This was for the sake of convenience of the voters.

9.5One hundred polling stations served an electorate of 168,434from 7.30 am to 10.30 pm on polling day. As mentioned in Chapter 7, the voters were allocated polling stations according to their residential address. This was another arrangement to make it convenient for the voters to cast their votes. As in 1998, a voter of a subsector could also cast his/her vote for another subsector as an AR on behalf of a corporate voter, if he/she was one, at the same polling station.

9.6A co-ordination centre was set up in Hall 1 of the HKCEC Phase II to oversee all aspects of the operation, to collate statistics and to facilitate media coverage of the poll and the count. The centre comprised a statistical information centre, a press area, booths for the various departments involved in the elections, an area for the candidates, their agents and the general public, and a stage for announcement of results. It operated from 7.00 am on 9 July to about 12 noon on 10 July.

9.7A command post was set up in the REO for providing logistical support to the polling and counting stations and emergency services when necessary. Fortunately, the emergency measures needed not be implemented.

9.8The Police and the Civil Aid Services (“CAS”) performed crowd control duties and maintained order in the polling stations and the NCZs and NSZs. The Police also escorted ballot boxes from the polling stations to the counting station after the close of poll.

9.9To tie in with the use of the OMR for counting the votes, the ballot paper for subsector elections was so designed that the voter was required to fill out an oval-shaped blank against the name of the candidate of his/her choice by a felt pen provided inside the voting compartment, instead of using the chop with the “  ” sign.

9.10The poll went on smoothly and no serious problem was encountered. But the turnout rate of voters was hardly encouraging. Of the total electorate of 168,434from the contested subsectors, only 32,823 turned up for the poll, a mere 19.49%. This was considerably lower than the 23.38% in respect of the 1998 subsector elections. A breakdown of the voter turnout rate is at Appendix X.

Section 4 : The OMR

9.11With a view to speeding up the counting process, the Commission sought help from high technology. One version of the OMRwas used in the 1998 LegCo elections and was considered worth being used again. Knowing that a more advanced model would be used in the London Mayor and Assembly Elections held in May 2000, the EAC Chairman, accompanied by the CEO and staff members of the Constitutional Affairs Bureau (“CAB”) and REO, went to London to observe those Elections and see how themachine worked. The UK experience showed that what had to be done in three days could be completed in one day with the use of the OMR. For the EC subsector elections, 12 OMRs complete with technical back-up were hired at a total cost of HK$ 3 million. They proved to be of great help to the count.

Section 5 : The Count

9.12The counting station was set up in Hall 1 of the HKCEC Phase II, adjacent to the co-ordination centre. There were 26 counting zones, one for each of the contested subsectors and supervised by the related RO.

9.13The counting staff arrived at the counting station before the close of poll. The first ballot box was delivered to the counting station at 11.10 pm and was opened by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, the EAC Chairman and Members and the Chief Returning Officer. Thereafter the count started. As a first step, ballot boxes were delivered to the counting zones. The boxes were then opened and ballot papers contained therein were verified against the ballot paper accounts and sorted according to the subsectors. At a later stage, the sorted ballot papers were delivered to the counting zones of the relevant subsectors where initial screening was done manually and actual counting of votes was conducted by the OMR. The ROs were tasked with the responsibility of determining the validity of questionable ballot papers. This was done in the presence of the candidates and the agents who were staying at the counting station. 734 ballot papers were ruled invalid, which far outnumbered the 353 in the 1998 subsector elections (see Appendix XII).

9.14The count proceeded without hiccups. The first election result was announced at 3.30 am on 10 July 2000 (the day following the polling day). The results of the majority of the subsectors were announced before 6 am that day. The count for the Education subsector, the subsector with the largest electorate, was completed by 7.30 am. The entire counting process took about eight hours to complete, a relatively shorter time when compared with the 1998 subsector elections.

Section 6 : The EAC Members’ Visits

9.15To have a clear on-the-spot picture of the poll, the EAC Chairman and Members separately visited a number of polling stations. The visits started at 9.30 am and ended at about 5.15 pm. They met the press before they started off and after they finished. They were satisfied with the polling arrangements.

9.16The EAC Chairman and Members also visited the counting station to observe the counting process. They noted that the count was conducted smoothly without any difficulty. The OMR operated efficiently as expected, substantially speeding up the counting process.

Section 7 : The Results

9.17The election results were published in the Gazette on two different dates: names of the uncontested candidates on 14 June 2000 and names of those who won in the elections on 13 July 2000. A list of the result is at Appendix XI. An analysis of the rejected ballot papers is at Appendix XII.

9.18The EC thus formed comprised 90 ex-officio members, 40 members nominated from the Religious subsector, 182 returned uncontested and 482 returned contested from the elections, making a total of 794 members. This falls short of the generally-known figure of 800 by six because (a) four members had dual capacities, ie they were both deputies to the NPC and LegCo members, (b) one LegCo member had resigned from the Council before the term of office ended on 30 June 2000, and (c) one deputy to the NPC could not be an EC member for not being a permanent resident of Hong Kong.

[1] The nine uncontested subsectors were: Commercial (Second), Employers’ Federation of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chinese Enterprises Association, Hotel, Import and Export, Industrial (Second), Textiles and Garment, Agriculture and Fisheries and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

[2] The two uncontested sub-subsectors were: Sports and Publication.