Revealed: 43pc plunge in registered voters at private elderly homes after probe by electoral watchdog
Dramatic slump in figures follows SCMP exposé last year of old people being ferried to polling stations and allegedly told how to vote
The number of registered voters living in private elderly homes in Hong Kong has plunged 43.3 per cent since last year, the Post has found, after revelations that groups of old people were ferried to polling stations in the District Council elections last year and allegedly told who to vote for.
The development follows a citywide check by the elections watchdog on voters living in institutions for the elderly – which in 2015 emerged as the main source of a registration spike among those aged 56 or above.
Operators of elderly homes noted political parties were less enthusiastic about conducting voter registration campaigns for the Legislative Council elections this year than they were before the polls last year.
A Post study of the 2016 provisional electoral roll found that the number of voters in private nursing homes for the elderly had dropped from 3,675 in 2015 to 2,082 this year, with 13 out of 18 districts witnessing such a fall.
In Sha Tin, the number of elderly voters in such homes has shrunk 70 per cent from 117 to 34, while there was a decline of 65 per cent in Southern district and Sham Shui Po.
