Macau's election commission yesterday declared void nearly one in 20 of the ballots cast in Sunday's legislative election, and delayed its declaration of the results.
An academic said the volume of void ballots - 6,539, or 4.4 per cent of the 148,977 votes cast - meant vote-rigging, while unlikely, could not be ruled out. However, it was also likely some of the spoiled ballots were the result of elderly voters misusing the stamps electors were required to use to mark their ballot papers. It was the first time stamps had been used.
A final accounting committee consisting of a commissioner and two prosecutors is reviewing the void ballots. By last night it had checked 2,567 of them and ruled 2,220 of them valid.
The ballot paper features 16 rows, each representing a candidate or slate of candidates, and there is a square to the left of each row. An elector had to stamp a tick inside the square next to the candidate or slate he or she supported.
Some electors mistakenly stamped ticks in the middle or to the right of a row where a team's number, icon and name are shown, while others stamped more than one tick on their chosen row.
The final accounting committee said it had decided to relax the rules for determining whether or not a ballot is valid. It said a ballot would be regarded as valid as long as it showed the elector's clear inclination to choose a particular candidate or slate of candidates.
The volume of void ballots is such that the review could change the preliminary results. Melinda Chan Mei-yi, the wife of businessman David Chow Kam-fai and director of a charity group, was hanging on to twelfth place with 7,855 votes. Wong Seng-hong - a running mate of Angela Leong On-kei, fourth wife of casino mogul Stanley Ho Hung-sun - was 806 votes behind Melinda Chan, and Chan Hong, of the General Union of Neighbourhood Associations, 834 votes behind Melinda Chan.