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The Deputy Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Robin Ip, today (Friday) explained the List Voting System to be used in the forthcoming Legislative Council Election to be held on May 24.

Addressing a luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong Northeast, Mr Ip said the proportional representation voting system is used in many countries.

"It is widely accepted as open and fair and can more accurately reflect voter preference in the election outcome," he said.

Mr Ip said that for the LegCo Election in May, the List Voting System will be used for the geographical constituency elections to return 20 LegCo members from the five geographical constituencies - four in Hong Kong Island; three each in Kowloon East and Kowloon West; and five each in New Territories East and New Territories West.

Explaining how the List Voting System works, Mr Ip said that, candidates will contest in the form of lists, and each list may consist of any number of candidates up to the number of seats in the relevant constituency.

Candidates of each list have to rank themselves in order of priority, and their names will be printed on the ballot paper accordingly, he added.

"Voting is simple and easy. What voters need to do is simply choose one of the lists of candidates printed on the ballot paper and mark a 'tick' in the circle next to that list," Mr Ip said.

"Voters should note that they should not mark more than one 'tick'," he emphasized.

Explaining how the seats will be allocated under the List Voting System, Mr Ip said that seats will be allocated on the basis of the number of votes obtained by each list according to the Largest Remainder Formula.

"In the case of the Hong Kong Island Constituency which has four seats, a list will get a seat if it obtains one-quarter of the votes cast, and the seat will go to the candidate ranked first on the list. A list will get two seats if it obtains half of the votes cast, and the candidates ranked first and second in that list will get the seats, and so on."

Any remaining seats are then allocated to the lists with the largest number of remaining votes.

"We will launch a List Voting System telephone hotline 187 8877 shortly to explain the voting system and the seat allocation method," Mr Ip said. The hotline will operate 24 hours a day in three languages - Cantonese, Putonghua and English.

There are 2.8 million registered voters and Mr Ip called on them to cast their votes on May 24.

End/Friday, May 1, 1998

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