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Following is the transcript (English portion) of remarks by the Chairman of Electoral Affairs Commission, Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing, at a press briefing today (September 15) on the polling arrangements for the 2004 Legislative Council election.
Reporter: How serious are the allegations of representatives of candidate have been asked to leave? Do you think that large number of people were put off by the long wait and long lines ...make people not to vote? What are the repercussions of that ?
Chairman of EAC: Regarding your first question that somebody at the close of polls was asked to leave the polling station, it really depends on the status of this person asked to leave.
I read out the regulation for your reference, which is Section 63 of the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Legislative Council) Regulation. According to Section 63, Subsection 1 A of this regulation: "A candidate, an election agent, an accounting agent of such candidate, may stay in the polling station while it is closed for the preparation for the counting of votes."
It really depends on the status of the person asked to leave. If he qualifies as a candidate, or an election agent or a counting agent, of course the presiding officer asking him to leave would be not in accordance with the law.
But if the person's status is not one of those persons mentioned in the provision, we have to understand why. Even if the person qualifies to be one of these persons including in the provision, we have to first, understand why. There may be reasons, there may not be reasons. We have to investigate into the facts and secondly examine the evidence such as which is more credible and so on and we have to decide one way or the other.
As far as your second question is concerned, polling stations were short of ballot boxes and as a result, the voting process was delayed. Some of the polling stations were crowded. Would that put off electors? I don't believe that electors have been put off from casting their vote. Even in a very crowded polling station at Robinson Road, which I visited about 6:30pm for about an hour (on the polling day), there were a lot of voters lining up to cast their vote. As a result, we actually extended that polling station to accommodate more electors, and actually to increase counters, (issuing desks) for the electors to alleviate the situation. I do not believe that voters were put off because of this.
Therefore, I don't think there were repercussions, as you imply. We have to examine closely this time as we have admitted, the bad design of the ballot box, and the logistics in supplying additional ballot boxes to various polling stations which were in need. We have to review all these things and make clear to the public that I have been misreported.... There was allegation that I put the blame on electors. I never put any blame on electors. It's our design fault and our wrong estimate of the actual content of the ballot paper in practical use, which caused all these problems. I don't blame any electors.
Reporter: Can I just follow up the case on Siu Sai Wan that you were mentioning that ...(Inaudible)... If they are not in accordance with the law, then are the votes still considered as valid. What do you think are the reasons for that? Is it lack of training or briefing?
Chairman of EAC: I don't think it's a lack of training. But I don't know. Today, for example, if I'm talking to all of you people here, about some 30, 40 of you. Some may be listening, some may not be listening. At a particular time I'm not saying you don't listen for the whole time ... If otherwise, you wont' be here. You may be listening, but you may not be listening on particular topics. Therefore, I think somebody may miss what we have taught in the seminar. We have held 60 seminars altogether for all the polling staff and presiding officers and so on. I have personally talked to presiding officers in four sessions for two consecutive days. As to why they have to do that, we are trying to understand. We are getting evidence and we have to examine the evidence. It really depends. One doesn't know.
As far as whether the polling process or the counting process at that particular polling station is honest, fair or not, we have to examine all the evidence. We have to see the actual ballot papers counted. The ballot paper account, and the report, the provisional voter turnout, to actually assess what actually happened at that time, at 10:30 or slightly after. And then arrive at a conclusion as to whether the election held there was fair or not.
This is not something which you can likely pass a judgment on. We have to examine the evidence very closely and the reasons provided by the presiding officer concerned. We don't lightly jump into conclusion in this sort of matter.
Reporter: ...the same in the voter turnout and the ballot counted. Why would there be such a problem and do you think it will actually hurt the ...credibility?
Chairman of EAC: Say, if the voter turnout is about the same as the ballot paper account and it's about the same as the actual ballot papers counted, we can see from the first hour of the reported voter turnout up to the 14th hour if that's quite smooth. Then we look at the last hour turnout rate, and then we compare.
What's the suspicion for the person to be asked to get out of the polling station? There was suspicion that there was something going on inside. That's the general suspicion. Of course, I'm as suspicious as anybody else. I may be more suspicious. Therefore, I check the last hour turnout rate. If it was not unusual as compared with the figures of the first 14 hours, then there will be no problem of the fairness of the election.
We have to do a lot of things. I'm not going to tell everyone about the methods that we use. You should trust us. This is a very senior lawyer here, and I'm a judge. We will examine the evidence closely.
Member of the EAC, Mr Leung Nai-pang: I simply want to add that, all the times, Police and the Civil Aids Service officers and members are inside the counting station. Although a person may have been asked to leave the polling station or the counting station, but the Police officers and CAS officers and members are inside the polling station or counting station, apart from the polling staff. They are independent officers.
Chairman of EAC: That's something we have to consider as well.
Reporter: What about the discrepancies at Siu Sai Wan and the discrepancies of functional constituencies (votes)?
Chairman of EAC: The provisional turnout figures are very provisional. They were used as reference, which were produced by polling staff. It depends on how busy that polling station is. It depends on how accurate these people were doing these Chinese characters (with five strokes in one character) in getting the voter turnout rates. Everything has to be examined closely before one could get a conclusion.
Reporter: Could you clarify, do you think the Commission has changed its stance? At the beginning it said that the ballot box can be opened under the surveillance of a police or an election agent. Later, you said that even with the police officer or without the election agent, if a third party is present, the ballot box can be opened. What exactly is the case?
Chairman of EAC: No, you misunderstood what I'm saying. When I'm talking about opening the ballot box in the middle of polling, not at the counting stage. In the middle of polling, we have given instructions to the presiding officers that they could open the ballot boxes in the presence of an agent of a candidate, or all agents of all candidates in the polling station. Of course, if we have difficulty in finding such an agent because they were not in the polling station, how would he be able to find these people to be present if they could not be found within a short time? Because it's the shortage of ballot boxes that they would have looked after. It would need the availability of ballot boxes to cater for electors' voting. Then, in such circumstances, he could, in the presence of police officers inside the polling station, or perhaps a CAS officer, open the ballot box, to ensure the openness and fairness of what's inside there.
That situation is quite different from asking an agent to leave the polling station at the close of the poll. Because people were there looking after the ballot box which should have been locked after the close of poll, right before it will be opened again for counting.
In those circumstances, the situation is different. But it still depends on whether that process was witnessed by independent people. Do you understand what I mean? They're slightly different. Two different situations.
Reporter: My question is that in the middle of an election, if the ballot box is opened to rearrange the ballots so more votes can be put in the box, is it necessary or a must for an election agent to be present?
Chairman of EAC: Or an independent person, like a Police officer, should be present.
Reporter: If not, what is the point of having an election agent?
Chairman of EAC: There are points for election agents to be present, of course. There is no question about that. They can observe the voting process, they can observe the counting process. It depends on his own status. There must be a purpose there. If unfortunately he wasn't inside the polling station at the material time, then how could he be summoned by the presiding officer to come along? If the polling station concerned is in North District, and the polling agent says I've been transferred to HK Island, I'm going to come back in an hour's time, I'm going to travel by the MTR or whatever, should the PRO, the Presiding officer wait for an hour for him? Or should he take the expedient measure of doing it in front of a police officer inside the polling station? It's a matter of expediency and urgency of the matter.
Reporter: Regarding the discrepancies of the numbers on the screen, there appears to be some assumptions being made. One is that perhaps there are some human errors in reporting? ... and perhaps that people might have walked away with ballots. I realise that the discrepancies might not have made much of a difference in the results. But wouldn't that send a signal to the electorate that not every vote counts?
Chairman of EAC: No, no, no, no. Every vote counts. Every vote designed by the electors to be cast for the candidate or candidate list of his choice counts. There is no such thing of an elector's preference or vote not being counted. What these figures indicate is that, say out of 8,538 votes counted, apparently, 8,539 ballot papers were issued. If there was a loss of one ballot paper, it could have been due to an elector taking it away. Of course, he doesn't want to cast the vote, otherwise he wouldn't have taken it away. Or for some reasons we don't know that ballot paper is, one out of 8,500-odd, was missing. That was it.
Reporter: Can we fine tune the process so we will know what happened to the missing ballots?
Chairman of EAC: There is no way. We have considered all this before. There is no way to find out. There is no way to find out why there were missing ballot papers at the counting. One doesn't know.
Reporter: So you think the system at this point in time is quite perfect?
Chairman of EAC: This system applies everywhere in the world. There is no way to know - unless you put up a CCTV there and we examine the contents of the CCTV record and try to find out who has taken one ballot paper away or why it is missing. Perhaps it has been dropped on the floor or it has been swept away as rubbish. Unless you do that, you don't know. Unless there is a full record in picture, in movie, of what was happened in the polling station, you will not know. But if you do that, you'll be affecting the privacy of the elector and may even affect the most important principle of the secrecy of the vote. That is why nobody does that throughout the world. Nobody uses the CCTV system to record what's happening in the polling station. Because that would be against all principles.
Reporter: So nothing will be done to try and fine tune the process?
Chairman of EAC: No, nothing can be done.
Reporter: You said earlier that the elections are conducted openly and fairly. Do you think it's a little too early to say that as now you don't know how many polling stations had opened the boxes. Therefore you don't really know if a police officer or an agent of a candidate was present at every one of those...opening boxes. Is it too early to say that when there are ...serious allegation of fraud?
Chairman of EAC: No. Of course, the opening of the ballot boxes, we sent our instructions generally to the presiding officers. It was done as a matter of expediency and a matter of need. If it was not necessary for ballot boxes to be opened in the polling station, it was purely because of the presiding officer's work. Of course there would be something wrong. But we don't believe that was done at all. There was no complaint about that. Therefore we are quite sure that pursuant to our instructions, things were done properly because there was no complaint against impropriety, for impropriety. That's why we are quite sure, and because this was done under our instructions and we have the power to order the expedient measure to be used, to be adopted when the need arises, then I think everything is proper. And the election is fair and honest and open.
Reporter: Are you concerned that these confusion ...will actually hurt people's trust in EAC and the election system as a whole?
Chairman of EAC: I think people's confidence in us may have been affected, I don't know. Because it's people's view of the EAC whether we are an organisation which is honest, (interrupted) I don't even remember what I'm saying, I'm so much disturbed by this sound. And I hope people still trust us and what have I really got to gain if we were playing dirty, things like that? I hope they trust us on our record. We have been doing things very well for Hong Kong and this time there was a cock-up by the bad design of the ballot box and the wrong estimate of the number of ballot papers to be contained in it. And I hope they will forgive us.
Reporter: What about Mr Martin Lee and Mrs Rita Fan, they said that they want to make complaints of the long process and the crowded waiting area in the Kowloon Bay Centre. But no responsible officer came out to contact them? Also, Mr Ronny Tong also said yesterday he tried to contact you on the polling day but he could not reach you or any senior officer of the EAC. What could a candidate do if they have questions or arguments on the polling?
Chairman of EAC: If any candidate is dissatisfied with the election result or with anything done in the election, he can present an election petition to the court to question the result, to question the election, to question the propriety of the election. Anyone is entitled to do that insofar as he is a candidate, or 10 electors of a particular constituency can do that. They have full power under the law to take the election petition proceedings.
They were saying they were not able to contact us. I was not contacted at all. I don't know what sort of avenue they used to contact us when we were in Kowloon Bay. Mr Norman Leung and I were stationed at the Central Command Centre on the 3/F of the Kowloon Bay Counting Centre as from what, I was there as from 7.30 in the evening to about 12.45pm, 12.30pm, on the next day, with an interval where I missed myself because I went to Leighton Hill Community Hall to open the ballot box together with the Chief Executive, some of you must be there. I was talking to you.
Apart from then I was stationed fully in the central counting station. Mr Norman Leung, as far as I know, I saw him there, at what, 1pm? 1 am? Because we were visiting counting stations.
Reporter: But the fact is everyone saw that Mr Martin Lee and Mrs Rita Fan wanted to meet a responsible officer, but were rejected and were forced to go back to the crowded waiting area.
Chairman of EAC: I don't know about that. If they complain, they can make a complaint to us and then we will answer them. If they think the complaint is so serious as to feel that they should present an election petition, let it be. Let the court decide. We are not exempt from anything. We are not immune from anything. If they want any proper procedure to be taken, then do it.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, September 15, 2004
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