Report by : Gan Yung Chyan
/ KUCINTA SETIA
Image : Carrie Lam cites Singapore as an example of a country with a successful overseas voting system while Hong Kong opposition members cities Singapore as an example with a successful election during the pandemic and Carrie should not have delayed the Legislature Council election to September 2021. Courtesy of NTDTV.
Singapore is on the lips of the proposition and opposition party members including the leaderless movement of the 12 democrat activists in Hong Kong and foreign media despite the confirmed postponement of the Legislative Council election. These democrats and GTV questioned why Carrie Lam had to delay the election by one year, citing Singapore with a record increase of 400 confirmed covid cases on 10 July 2020 was able to conduct a safe and successful polling day. The democrats continued to denounce her political considerations after she advocated setting up Hong Kong's overseas voting system, following Singapore's example, to include Hong Kongers living in the Greater Bay Area (Macau, Zhuhai and Shenzhen) while Hong Kong scholar Cai Ziqiang raised the possibility of fraud as a result of an un-monitored overseas voting system.
The Hong Kong Legislative Council election was postponed for one year and will be held on 5 September 2021. Chief Executive Carrie Lam accepted interviews with radio and television on 1 August 2020. She reiterated that postponing the election is not depriving voters of their voting rights. In her interview, she took Singapore as an example, saying that the country has an overseas voting system, so it is better to hold elections as scheduled under the epidemic. She believes that Hong Kong needs to review the election arrangements, including overseas voting and special arrangements for the elderly to retain the right to vote for Hong Kong residents in the Greater Bay Area.
Some scholars questioned that overseas voting is difficult to monitor, and fraud is prone to occur. Some democratic congressmen denounced that there are political considerations behind overseas voting because they are closer to the source of the established votes. Liu Zhaojia, vice chairman of the National Hong Kong and Macau Research Association, believes that it is easier for overseas voting to be limited to the Greater Bay Area, but it is expected that the central government may not allow all overseas Hong Kong permanent residents to vote.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor accepted HK-TVB's news interview yesterday and emphasized that postponing the election is not to deprive voters of the right to vote, but to postpone it. If it is held as scheduled on 6 September 2020, voters in other places or border controls under the epidemic will not be able to exercise their right to vote. When asked how to improve the electoral system, Carrie agreed to prepare early to deal with unexpected events. The government must seriously consider issues including overseas voting.
Carrie said that the right to vote for Hong Kong residents in the Greater Bay Area should be retained
Mrs. Lam specifically mentioned in the interview that the Greater Bay Area is a one-hour living circle, "Should future elections respect these people (in the Greater Bay Area), (they) are also Hong Kong residents, and retain their right to vote". It is also known that the special arrangements for voting for the elderly can all be reviewed. According to statistics from the Census and Statistics Department, as of mid-2019, there were more than 540,000 Hong Kong permanent residents who had stayed in Guangdong Province for 6 months or more.
Referring to the election allowing overseas voting to overcome the constraints of the epidemic, Carrie Lam was asked on the business program "Politics and Economics Saturday" if the epidemic is not alleviated in one year, whether the election will be postponed. She said that Singapore allows voters to register and can vote overseas. If Hong Kong can overcome the current constraints, it is expected if the epidemic continues a year later, there will be better conditions to hold elections as scheduled.
Cai Ziqiang, a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and Administration at the Chinese University of China, expressed his reservations about overseas voting. He described it as "opening the Pandora's box" and destroying the entire electoral system. The damage caused by worry far outweighs the benefit. He said that voting arrangements and how to supervise them are all questions, and he also questioned whether there is a place for voting stations in every country. He said that one of the ways to vote overseas is by mail, and there may be many cases of fraud.
Liu Zhaojia: The Central Government may not allow overseas Hong Kong people to vote
Liu Zhaojia said that Hong Kong defines the qualifications of voters based on residence, unlike foreign countries, which use nationality as the standard. Therefore, Hong Kongers overseas voting must first deal with demarcation issues. If only permanent residents in the Greater Bay Area with Hong Kong as their habitual residence can vote abroad, relatively it is easier to deal with, and the subsequent problems are technical problems such as setting up voting stations and election funding. He thinks it is difficult to solve the above problems within one year. He said that the central government in Beijing may not be willing to allow all Hong Kong permanent residents to vote overseas, including overseas Hong Kong residents, because it is difficult to grasp the political orientation of overseas Hong Kong people and affect the direction of patriots' governance, and they worry about external forces assisting democrats in canvassing overseas votes.
Lin Zhuoting: Living in mainland China does not meet the qualifications of voters. Ge Peifan: It will not be difficult to collect votes electronically in the coming year
The Democratic Party Lin Zhuoting believes that if Hong Kong residents in the Greater Bay Area usually live in the mainland, they no longer meet the electoral qualifications of the electoral regulations, and questioned whether they cannot return to Hong Kong during the four-year elections and whether they often return to Hong Kong on weekdays. He believes that there are political considerations behind the overseas voting because it is closer to the source of the established votes. He also worried that if mainland Hong Kong people wanted to vote for the democrats, they would be under political pressure because they were in the mainland.
The DAB Ge Peifan said that allowing Hong Kong people to vote overseas involves amendments to the regulations, including legal issues regarding the establishment of voting stations in mainland China. She believes that it will not be difficult to collect votes electronically in the next year. Voters can collect votes and vote at polling stations in the Mainland by inserting ID cards and fingerprints through two-factor authentication. However, online voting is more difficult because every voter has a digital personal identity for sufficient protection.
Sources : Ming Pao, GTV and NTDTV Declassified
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