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The exercise to nominate representatives of arts interests for the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) 2013 ended yesterday (October 7). Of the 8,512 registered voters (an increase of 1,441 registered voters compared to 7,071 registered voters in the last exercise), 2,884 turned out to vote for their representatives. The voter turnout rate was 33.9 per cent, representing a 6.9 per cent increase over the last exercise.
A spokesman for the Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) said the Government was pleased with the encouraging response from voters. "This reflects the arts community's interest in the development of the arts in Hong Kong, and active participation in nominating their representatives to join the HKADC," the spokesman said.
After the completion of polling at 10pm yesterday, ballots were counted and the following candidates received the highest number of votes in the 10 contested arts interests:
Arts Interests Candidates Votes
Received
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Arts Administration Ms Ribble Chung Siu-mui 1,247
Arts Criticism Mr Lo Wai-luk 1,278
Arts Education Mr Leung Sung-yum 1,293
Dance Ms Mui Cheuk-yin 1,224
Drama Mr Anthony Wong Chau-sang 936
Film Arts Ms Ellen Pau 1,370
Literary Arts Ms Ng Mei-kwan 1,385
Music Ms Barbara Fei 871
Visual Arts Mr Chan Kam-shing 930
Chinese Opera (Xiqu) Ms Lau Wai-ming 1,828
The list of nominated representatives will be submitted to the Chief Executive for consideration of appointment to the HKADC for the next term commencing January 1, 2014.
The HAB commissioned PR Concepts Asia Limited as the nomination agent to be responsible for executing the whole nomination exercise including various arrangements on the polling day. The polling was conducted from October 6 to 7. As in previous nomination exercises, cross-arts interest voting was continued this year, in which voters from the 10 arts interests may cast votes for candidates standing for nomination in all of the 10 arts interests (Arts Administration, Arts Criticism, Arts Education, Dance, Drama, Film Arts, Literary Arts, Music, Visual Arts and Chinese Opera (Xiqu)). Voters were each given a stapled set of 10 ballot papers in different colours with each ballot paper representing one arts interest.
During the nomination exercise, three voters found that they were each given a set of 11, instead of 10, stapled ballot papers, including a redundant ballot paper for one arts interest. The agent immediately recalled the sets of ballot papers and gave each voter a correct set of ballot papers. The agent then immediately checked all sets of ballot papers which were not yet issued to voters, and found that there were five other incorrectly stapled sets.
After the polling ended in the evening of October 7, the nomination agent gave an account of the incorrectly stapled ballots and explained to the candidates, observers and members of the public present at the polling centre the ways to handle the ballots. After discussing with the candidates present at the polling centre, the nomination agent adopted the candidates' views and reached a consensus on ways to check and process the incorrectly stapled ballots. The HAB had all along been closely monitoring the execution of the whole nomination exercise.
During the vote counting, the nomination agent discovered only two sets of incorrectly stapled ballot papers out of all the ballots collected from voters who had cast their votes. (One set contained two sheets of ballots for the Visual Arts contested arts interest and the voter who received it did not vote on either of the duplicated ballot papers; another set contained only nine ballot papers in which the sheet for the Arts Administration contested arts interest was missed out.) The nomination agent handled the ballots in accordance with the arrangements agreed with the candidates and the polling results were not affected.
The HAB expressed its apology to candidates and other people affected for the incident of having a small number of incorrectly stapled ballot papers in the nomination exercise. The HAB will request the nomination agent to submit a review report on the whole exercise, including an explanation on the stapling error of the ballot papers. The HAB will study the report in detail with a view to enhancing the arrangements of the nomination exercise in the future.
Ends/Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Issued at HKT 19:30
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