Border votes must not harm integrity of Hong Kong poll
- All eyes are on the city’s first Legislative Council election since Beijing’s revamp, and the operation of polling stations at checkpoints for Hong Kong residents on the mainland
Conducting a large-scale election amid a pandemic is challenging enough. The stakes have become even higher when the ballot, the first following Beijing’s revamp to bar “non-patriots” from running, is extended to border checkpoints for Hongkongers on the mainland for the first time.
The authorities must ensure that the move will not compromise the integrity of the election.
Some 370,000 Hongkongers aged 18 or over live on the mainland. How many are registered voters remains unclear.
But with just a quota of 111,000 allowed at the three border polling stations, the special arrangement for the Legislative Council election on December 19 is unlikely to swing a widely expected low turnout. But it enables voters stranded across the border to exercise their right to vote without going through the hassle of quarantine.
Apart from registering their preferred polling station and time for balloting, voters must also produce a negative Covid-19 test result no more than 48 hours before entering the premises. They shall immediately return to the mainland under the so-called closed-loop arrangement.
Pro-Beijing politicians have long lobbied for polling stations to be set up on the mainland, a move critics say will help increase their number of votes, but the law does not allow ballots to be cast outside the city. The unprecedented move allowing voters to briefly cross the border and return without quarantine is a compromise, taking into account the extraordinary circumstances and legal constraints.