Proposed guidelines for Rural Representative Election released for public consultation today (with photos/video)
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The Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) today (July 11) released for public consultation the Proposed Guidelines on Election-related Activities in respect of the Rural Representative Election (RRE). The public consultation period will last for 30 days until August 9.
At a press conference today, the EAC Chairman, Mr Justice Barnabas Fung Wah, said, "The 2023 Rural Ordinary Election (ROE) will be held early next year. A total of 1 484 Village Representatives, comprising 695 Resident Representatives (ReRs) and 789 Indigenous Inhabitant Representatives (IIRs), will be returned for 709 villages. In addition, 39 and 17 Kaifong Representatives (KFRs) will be returned for the Market Towns (MTs) of Cheung Chau and Peng Chau respectively. According to established practice, the EAC will review and update the guidelines before each rural ordinary election."
Mr Justice Fung said that the proposed guidelines are prepared on the basis of the Guidelines on Election-related Activities in respect of the RRE released in October 2018, with appropriate and necessary amendments. The amendments are primarily classified into three major areas: the first category reflects the amendments to relevant electoral laws. It mainly involves six pieces of amended legislation or subsidiary legislation related to the RRE since the Guidelines were issued in October 2018, including the legislation and subsidiary ones amended in the Rural Representative Election (Amendment) Ordinance 2022 (the Ordinance) recently passed by the Legislative Council for implementation. The second category reflects the amendments to electoral arrangements that have been reflected in other election guidelines, including the Guidelines on Election-related Activities in respect of the Chief Executive Election issued this year and the Guidelines on Election-related Activities in respect of the Election Committee Subsector Elections and the Legislative Council Election issued last year. The third category is to provide further explanations with reference to the operational experience of past public elections. Most of the amendments in the proposed guidelines are under the first and second categories.
Registration of electors
The amended legal provisions stipulate that as for ReR and KFR Elections, the requirement to submit address proof is extended from currently applicable to change of registration particulars applications to all new voter registration applications.
Nomination of candidates
In accordance with the Ordinance, the proposed guidelines update the circumstances in which a person shall be disqualified from being nominated as a candidate and from being elected as a Rural Representative (RR) for a Rural Area. It is specified that any person who, within the five years before the date of election, declines or neglects to take a specified oath or is in breach of the oath or fails to fulfil the legal requirements and conditions on upholding the Basic Law and bearing allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People's Republic of China, shall be disqualified from being nominated as a candidate and from being elected as an RR.
For nomination of candidates, following the practice of past elections, a person must sign a declaration in the nomination form as part of the statutory nomination procedures, stating that he/she will uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the HKSAR. Otherwise, he/she will not be validly nominated as a candidate. In past elections, a Confirmation Form was used to ensure all candidates fully understood the relevant legal provisions. In the 2023 ROE, legal provisions in relation to upholding the Basic Law will be clearly stated in the nomination form. Reference of upholding the Basic Law and bearing allegiance to the HKSAR as stipulated in the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap. 1) will also be added to the nomination form to ensure that the candidate fully understands the legal requirements and the responsibilities concerned when he/she signs the nomination form. Therefore, asking the candidate to sign a separate Confirmation Form is not required.
Polling arrangements
Regarding the arrangements for collecting ballot papers, upon entry to the polling station, an elector must present his/her original Hong Kong identity document to the polling staff for verification at any of the ballot paper issuing desks, before he/she can be issued with the ballot paper(s). The amended legislation relaxes the documentary requirement concerning an elector who has lost his/her identity document by allowing him/her to collect the ballot paper upon producing a "memo of lost property" (a document evidencing a report to a police officer of the loss or destruction of the person's identity document) and the original of a valid passport or similar travel document, without having to present a copy of his/her identity document at the same time.
The Ordinance allows the Home Affairs Department (HAD), having regard to the actual circumstances, to adopt the Electronic Poll Register (EPR) system for issuing ballot papers at polling stations. That said, the relevant section of the Ordinance is for standby use only, and the EPR system will not be adopted in the 2023 ROE, mainly due to the remoteness of many villages. According to the experience of the 2021 Legislative Council General Election, the polling stations in these places lack adequate network coverage. The HAD will proactively study and look for solutions.
Counting arrangements
In the past RREs, the counting of votes of the Village Representative Elections for villages within the same Rural Committee was conducted centrally in the same counting station, and the Returning Officer (RO) concerned was responsible for the counting arrangements and monitoring the count. The HAD will set up polling-cum-counting stations for the first time in the 2023 ROE (except the dedicated polling stations). The Presiding Officers, instead of the ROs, will be responsible for the counting of votes. The polling stations will be turned into counting stations for counting of votes after the close of the poll so as to save the delivery time of ballot papers and speed up the counting process.
Media reporting concerning the KFR Election
As in other public elections, the media should follow the principle of fair and equal treatment in reporting news relating to the election and the candidates. For the KFR Election, due to the considerable number of seats and candidates involved, the media may have practical difficulties in mentioning all the other candidates of the same MT in the same programme or publication when producing and publishing news reports related to a candidate or feature programmes to introduce a particular individual candidate. Therefore, a similar arrangement for the Election Committee constituency of the Legislative Council General Election last year has been introduced in the proposed guidelines. The media may choose to provide viewers, listeners or readers with the total number of candidates of the same MT during the programme or in the publication, and mention the platform maintained by the media, such as the webpage of the organisation/programme/publication, where the names of the other candidates of the relevant MT can be found. For the avoidance of doubt, this arrangement is not applicable to ReR and IIR Elections where the number of candidates is relatively small.
On the aspect of the guidelines based on the fairness of the election, major changes are, with reference to the operational experience gained in previous elections and relevant court cases, to serve reminders to candidates on some electoral arrangements such as election meetings, publishing election advertisements, prohibition against canvassing activities outside polling stations, exit polls, election expenses and election donations, sending election email and using loudspeakers.
The proposed guidelines can be downloaded from the EAC's website (www.eac.hk). They are also available at the Registration and Electoral Office and the Home Affairs Enquiry Centres of District Offices.
Written representations can be sent to the EAC Secretariat by post to 10/F, Harbour Centre, 25 Harbour Road, Wan Chai; by fax to 2511 1682; or by email to eacenq@eac.hk by August 9. Late submissions will not be considered.
The EAC will hold a public forum on the proposed guidelines from 7pm to 8pm on July 21 (Thursday) at Lung Hang Estate Community Centre, Sha Tin. Members of the public are invited to attend the forum to express their views. Details of the forum can be found on the EAC's website (www.eac.hk).
For enquiries, please call 2891 1001.
Ends/Monday, July 11, 2022
Issued at HKT 15:30
Issued at HKT 15:30
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