Young voters deserve a reason to engage

It is difficult to dissociate the slump in the number of young voters from the electoral reforms imposed by Beijing. Pro-establishment parties and candidates need to make better use of a playing field tilted in their favour by redoubling efforts to come up with ideas that give potential voters real choice

SCMP Editorial

Published: 10:15am, 3 Oct 2021

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Radical reform may have narrowed participation and choice in the city’s electoral landscape, but Hong Kong remains a diverse society. That is one of its strengths. Elections therefore can still be an important mechanism in building consensus that is fundamental to social and economic stability. This raises the question whether we should be worried that the number of registered voters rose by only 419 over the past year, compared with more than 300,000 in both the previous year and the year before.

These numbers can ebb and flow according to how engaged people are with livelihood issues. Exceptional factors like pandemic restrictions can skew them. An increase of only thousands is not unusual, but one of a few hundred bears closer examination.

This shows falls of about 6 per cent in the number of registered voters aged 18 to 30, and 21 to 25, and a similar increase in the number of voters over 70, reflecting ageing of the population.

But those falls do not prepare psephologists for a 22 per cent slump in the number of voters aged 18 to 20. It is difficult to dissociate it from the electoral reforms imposed by Beijing.

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Generally speaking, it would not be surprising if people were depoliticised, or disillusioned by politics, during these turbulent times. The decrease in registered young voters, according to one analyst, could be attributable to a lack of incentive to vote.

Amid measures to comply with Beijing’s direction that only patriots govern Hong Kong, this could reflect a perception that there is little to choose from, or doubts over the participation of the Democratic Party, which has attracted up to 90 per cent of the 30-and-under vote in the past.

This newspaper has always urged people to cherish the right to vote by using it. It is easy in hindsight, following a drastic electoral overhaul that reduced the space for opposition, to say that the pro-Beijing camp should have mobilised to shore up the voter base, if only for the sake of appearances in coming elections. Now it is time for pro-establishment parties and candidates to make better use of a playing field tilted in their favour, and redouble their efforts to come up with ideas that give voters real choice and motivation to engage.