Even discounting suspicious votes, one - anonymous - design was clear winner
More than 4,000 of the 33,000-plus comment cards members of the public posted to show which of the shortlisted West Kowloon Cultural Project designs they preferred were in identical envelopes and contained similar answers.
The revelation appears to lend substance to shortlisted bidder Henderson Land's questioning of the credibility of public polling on the plans.
The government-commissioned consultation, conducted by Polytechnic University's Public Policy Research Institute, had three components: comment cards from the exhibition of the shortlisted proposals; written submissions and views expressed at forums/meetings; and three telephone polls.
A total of 33,416 comment cards, with answers to 13 questions, were received. Of these, 4,176 were posted using an identical envelope or mailing label and contained similar answers.
The institute's Peter Yuen Pok-man said over 90 per cent of the suspect cards favoured the plans of one of the three bidders - the one which received the strongest public support. The plans' authors were not identified in the consultation, and the government would not say which plan was involved.