The Electoral Affairs Commission today announced the guidelines on activities relating to the Legislative Council Election.

Electoral Affairs Commission Chairman Barnabas Fung said at a press conference that the Guidelines on Election-related Activities in respect of the Legislative Council Election apply to the 2021 Legislative Council General Election to be held in December and Legislative Council by-elections afterwards.

He noted that the guidelines were prepared on the basis of the edition released in June 2020, with about 50 major amendments.

The amendments are primarily classified into three areas. The first category reflects the amendments to relevant electoral laws, mainly the Improving Electoral System (Consolidated Amendments) Ordinance 2021 which covers the composition of the Legislative Council, the method of its formation and the nomination process of candidates.

Most of the amendments in the guidelines fall into the first category.

The second category reflects the amendments to electoral arrangements which have been reflected in other election guidelines while the third category is the elaboration of new electoral arrangements and procedures, such as the voting arrangements and the requirements on media reporting in relation to the newly established Election Committee constituency (ECC).

The composition of the Legislative Council will be expanded from 70 to 90 members, returned by geographical constituencies, functional constituencies and the ECC. The 40 ECC seats will be elected by the 1,500 Election Committee members.

The 2021 Legislative Council General Election will be held on December 19. The Registration & Electoral Office plans to set up more than 620 ordinary polling stations across the city.

Given the use of the Electronic Poll Register system and other improvement measures in the election, the polling hours will be changed from between 7.30am to 10.30pm to between 8.30am to 10.30pm to allow more time for a final check of equipment and data network connections.

There will be two queues outside the polling station, one for people aged 70 or above, pregnant women and those who have difficulties in standing for a long time to queue due to their physical condition, while the other queue is for the rest of the voters.

An ECC polling station will be set up in the Convention & Exhibition Centre. Considering that the block voting system will be adopted for the ECC and electors must select exactly 40 candidates, optical mark recognition machines will be provided in the ECC polling station to avoid invalid ballots.

The machines will never record or count voters' choices marked on their ballot papers.

A polling station will be set up at the Penny's Bay Quarantine Centre for voters who are undergoing compulsory quarantine.

Special voting arrangements will not be provided for those who are undergoing home quarantine or compulsory quarantine at hotels based on the Centre for Health Protection's advice.

Click here for the guidelines.