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Hong Kong leader John Lee has said that upcoming election arrangements would be “satisfactory” after lawmakers expressed concerns that a plan to introduce “smart” ballot boxes might dissuade voters from casting blank ballots amid privacy concerns.
Legislators on Monday discussed the plan to use scanners to ensure voters’ ballots were validly marked in next year’s Legislative Council (LegCo) election, a move that the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau said would “streamline and enhance” procedures.
According to a document submitted to the legislature’s panel on constitutional affairs, the bureau said it was planning to introduce smart ballot boxes while ensuring that “cardinal election principles” such as voting confidentiality would be upheld.
Chief Executive John Lee told reporters in Cantonese on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting with the Executive Council, that authorities would ensure that the election was conducted smoothly and that voters found the arrangements “satisfactory”.
Under the proposed arrangement, paper ballots will still be used, while the smart ballot box will feature a checking function to ensure that ballots have been correctly completed.
“If a ballot is recognised as possibly invalid, the smart ballot box will prompt electors to verify their markings, thereby enhancing safeguards for voters exercising their rights,” the document said.
Hong Kong in 2021 passed legislative amendments banning “open incitement” to cast blank or invalid ballots, though individuals retain the right to leave blank or spoil their ballots.
Voters have ‘right’ to cast blank ballots
Some lawmakers on Monday expressed concerns over the implications of the smart ballot boxes, saying voters may worry that their ballot would not be secret. Tik Chi-yuen, who represents the social welfare sector, questioned whether the smart boxes could tell who a voter had opted for, and defended voters’ right to cast a blank vote: “I might support the election by participating but I might not find either candidate to be ideal, so I’ll cast a blank vote.”
A voter would still be “right” to do so, Tik said.
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang said the proposed arrangement was aimed at protecting voter rights, as the notification system would remind voters whether they had voted for too many or too few candidates.
He also addressed privacy concerns, saying the scanners could not match ballots to a voter.
“We are not trying to identify voters who have deliberately [defaced their votes]. When people cast their ballot, there is no CCTV involved, and you don’t have to produce your ID card. And there is no way for us to identify who you are,” Tsang said.
The bureau said that Hong Kong’s elections watchdog, the Electoral Affairs Commission, would take into account efficiency enhancement, safety and security, privacy protection and public perception when considering whether to adopt the new arrangements.
The bureau expects to table the bill to the LegCo in by the end of March 2025.
Next year’s LegCo election will be the city’s second since a Beijing-decreed electoral overhaul ensuring only “patriots” can run in the polls and reducing the number of seats directly elected by the public in the legislature. The first, held in December 2021, saw turnout of 30.2 per cent – the lowest ever for a legislative election.
Similar electoral changes were applied to district-level bodies in 2023. Following that overhaul, last December’s District Council election also saw a record low turnout of 27.5 per cent, down from 71.2 per cent recorded during the 2019 election, when pro-democracy candidates won by a landslide.
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