LCQ6: Staff for 2025 Legislative Council General Election
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Question:
According to the Report on the 2025 Legislative Council General Election published by the Electoral Affairs Commission, the Registration and Electoral Office recruited a total of around 34 000 electoral staff in this election, who were mainly serving civil servants and full-time post-retirement service contract staff. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of the respective expenditures incurred in recruiting serving civil servants and full-time post-retirement service contract staff to serve as the aforesaid electoral staff;
(2) of the staffing establishment for various electoral staff posts (including Presiding Officers, Deputy Presiding Officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Counting Supervisors, Assistant Counting Supervisors, and other posts); the numbers of working days and hours for which such staff performed election-related duties; and
(3) given that there are views that the expenditure on the aforesaid election is too high, whether the Government will consider reviewing the practice of paying additional remuneration to civil servants participating in electoral work, so as to save public funds?
Reply:
President,
The general election for the eighth term Legislative Council (LegCo) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was held on December 7, 2025. The election is the second LegCo general election after the HKSAR improved the electoral system and fully implemented the principle of "patriots administering Hong Kong". It carries profound significance and is important to the steadfast and successful implementation of the "one country, two systems", good governance, people's livelihood and economic development in the HKSAR. At the election in December last year, voting was conducted in the 10 geographical constituencies (GCs), 28 functional constituencies, and the Election Committee constituency (ECC). To facilitate electors, various pioneering arrangements were introduced in the election, including extending polling hours to 16 hours, setting up designated polling stations and outreach polling stations for the convenience of various groups, and adding Near Boundary Polling Stations (NBPSs). The overall election process was smooth, with each stage, from issuing ballot papers, voting, and to counting, etc, being carried out in an orderly manner, successfully electing all 90 members to form the eighth term LegCo of the HKSAR.
The HKSAR Government has all along worked closely with the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) to enhance various electoral arrangements with the spirit of steadfastly seeking progress while ensuring stability, with a view to ensuring that all electoral processes would be conducted in a more efficient and user-friendly manner. To ensure the orderly conduct of the election and to facilitate electors in casting votes, the Registration and Electoral Office (REO) would fully prepare for each election, taking into account the actual circumstances including the number of electors at polling stations, venue size, and make reference to the experience in past elections, so to allocate appropriate and sufficient electoral staff for each procedural step.
As directed by the EAC, to prepare and conduct the general election for the eighth term LegCo, and in accordance with the electoral legislation, the REO appointed a total of approximately 34 000 serving civil servants and retired civil servants under the Post-retirement Service Contract Scheme (PRSC) as electoral staff, so to ensure that there would be sufficient manpower to carry out preparatory work across the territory on the day before the polling day, in addition to polling and counting work from the polling day to the following day. With the concerted efforts of all parties, the election was completed smoothly in a fair, open, honest, safe and orderly, efficient and user-friendly manner. The overall process was highly satisfactory.
In response to the question raised by Dr the Hon Junius Ho, I reply as follows -
(1) The total expenditure incurred by the REO for the appointment of about 34 000 electoral staff for the general election for the eighth term LegCo was around $236 million, and vast majority of the staff were serving civil servants. Only around 400 of the staff were retired civil servants. Most electoral staff were required to perform duties for three days, which covered the day before polling day, polling day and the day after.
(2) The REO appointed electoral staff for the general election for the eighth term LegCo in accordance with the relevant electoral legislation. These included about 810 Presiding Officers, about 1 980 Deputy Presiding Officers, about 7 360 Assistant Presiding Officers, about 90 Counting Supervisors, about 430 Assistant Counting Supervisors, and about 23 180 other staff such as Polling Officers and Counting Officers. These electoral staff performed duties in accordance with their appointed responsibilities and related electoral legislation and procedures. They were assigned to perform duties at ordinary polling-cum-counting stations, ECC polling station, NBPSs, dedicated polling stations, designated polling stations, outreach polling stations, consolidated main counting station, central counting station, as well as the Central Command Centre and the Statistical Information Centre, among whom there were staff responsible for providing logistical and emergency support, etc.
The working hours of electoral staff varied according to their assigned tasks and operational needs. In general, electoral staff are required to make preparations at the venue the day before polling day and the actual hours depend on the specific work requirements on site. Besides, taking electoral staff on duty at polling-cum-counting stations as an example, to tie in with the 16-hour polling hours at the election, their duty commenced at 6am on polling day to prepare for the opening of stations at 7.30am. After the close of poll at 11.30pm, they continued their duties until 4am on the following day to complete delivery, counting and other follow-up tasks. The total duty hours from polling day to the following day were about 22 hours, and working hours of most electoral staff spanned a period of three days.
In addition, electoral staff are required to attend a series of training during the preparation period for the election as provided by the REO in relation to the tasks assigned to them, e.g. briefing sessions, on-site training and simulated drills. Taking the example of staff on duty at polling stations, their practical training include practising ballot paper issuance procedures for the Electronic Poll Register, fallback plan for the system, so as to ensure that they would be able to carry out the ballot paper issuance procedures for the Electronic Poll Register in an orderly manner. The electoral staff were also required to be well-versed with work manuals and training materials prepared by the REO as well as be familiar with the professional knowledge in relation to their duties and various processes and operations in various stages of their work procedures to enhance their execution and response capabilities.
(3) The LegCo general election was a large scale, territory-wide election that the HKSAR placed utmost importance on. Its successful conduct in a fair, open, honest, safe and orderly, as well as efficient and user-friendly manner depended on the thorough preparations beforehand. To this end, the EAC must arrange appropriate and sufficient personnel to be in strict accordance with the electoral legislation and guidelines, so to ensure that electoral arrangements were impartial and independent.
The EAC has all along relied on civil servants as a source of stable, reliable, and experienced electoral staff. The prevailing appointment mechanism for electoral staff is conducive to the recruitment of suitable and experienced staff for performing electoral duties to ensure the smooth conduct of the electoral process.
The HKSAR Government, the EAC and the REO, with the spirit of steadfastly seeking progress while ensuring stability and upholding the principle of fiscal prudence, will continue to review and enhance electoral arrangements and resources utilisation, so as to ensure the effective use of public resources.
Thank you, President.
Ends/Wednesday, June 3, 2026
Issued at HKT 16:15
Issued at HKT 16:15
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