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The following is issued on behalf of the Electoral Affairs Commission:
The counting of ballot papers from 326 constituencies in the 2003 District Council election was completed at 4.15am today (November 24).
The vote-counting process took six hours to complete after polling ended last night. This was faster than that in the 1999 District Council election, which was completed about 14 and a half hours after polls closed.
In fact, some 190 constituencies had completed counting by 2.30am today. The first result came out at 11.41pm last night.
The Chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission, Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing, said a preliminary analysis attributed the relatively smooth process to the new polling station cum counting station arrangements.
"The new method of counting votes at the polling station, without the process of delivering ballot boxes to various District counting stations, has proved to be quite effective.
"The new initiative of deploying polling staff to count votes also works well in this election."
Mr Justice Woo noted that some counting stations took a slightly longer time to complete the vote-counting process.
He said it was probably because some of them had a large number of votes or needed vote recounts. He cited the Ping Shek constituency area as an example, which had 4,543 votes cast.
The Commission will review various electoral arrangements and study how to improve them further. It shall make a report to the Chief Executive on matters relating to the election within the next three months.
The Commission thanked the 10,000 polling staff and various Government departments involved in the election, especially the Registration and Electoral Office, for serving electors and candidates as well as helping to make electoral arrangements smooth. The Commission also thanked all the electors and candidates for their support to the election.
On polling day alone, the Commission, 18 Returning Officers and 423 Presiding Officers in charge of polling stations handled 1,479 complaints about breaches of electoral guidelines issued by the Commission 289 of them were about illegal canvassing in no-canvassing zones outside polling stations, 362 about election advertisements and 176 about disturbance to electors.
Ends/Monday, November 24, 2003
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