I REFER to your report that emigrants might be able to vote by proxy in 1995 (Sunday Morning Post, August 14) and your editorial warning that great care would have to be taken to prevent fraudulent practices.
One of the main objections to any extension of the present voting system is the possibility of vote-buying. For with a proxy vote, you can pay a voter to go to Macau or Shenzhen for the day, and to make you the proxy. Unless the Government can find a secure way of preventing such malpractice, I do not think the plan will work.
Far better is the suggestion the Government has so obstinately avoided, namely, to vote by telephone. As has been repeated so often, this is at least as secure as a vote in a polling station, if not more so, and could be operated from a telephone beyond the boundaries of Hong Kong, if prearranged. Such a vote, I suggest, would be least prone of all to pressure to vote someone else's way.
But more importantly, the massive boost to voter turnout would effectively overcome any fraud. I cannot understand why the Government is twisting in such contortions to try to postpone this most sensible and inevitable development.
SAMUEL P. W. WONG Legislative Councillor Engineering Constituency
