Update | Scholars find 15 plans for 2017 poll that meet international standards

A group of international scholars has chosen 15 electoral reform plans they say meet international standards for universal suffrage.

The academics, experts in politics and constitutional law, were brought in by the Occupy Central pro-democracy movement to help filter different models for the 2017 chief executive election ahead of its third "deliberation day" on Tuesday. Up to 3,000 supporters will join the deliberation day and select three models to be put to a "civil referendum", an electronic poll open to all registered voters from June 20 to 22. Occupy will endorse the winner.

But Occupy - which has attracted international attention for its plan to rally 10,000 people to block streets if the government fails to come up with an acceptable reform plan - has been urged to delay the poll by the University of Hong Kong's law dean.

Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun warned that the vote could harm the chances of consensus being reached over a reform plan, which would need Beijing's approval, and support from at least a few pan-democrats to pass in the legislature.

But Occupy co-founder Dr Chan Kin-man said the vote must take place before July 1, the date of the city's main annual pro- democracy protest.

Occupy said yesterday that the academics had assessed 29 plans put forward as part of the government's consultation on electoral reform, which ends on Saturday. Of those, 15 met the standards established in the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and were in line with the Basic Law.