The Electoral Affairs Commission has made several changes to the Legislative Council General Election vote counting arrangements to speed up the whole process with a view to declare the election result sooner.

The commission's chairman Barnabas Fung made the statement at a media session after his visit to a mock polling station at North Point Community Hall today.

After the close of polls, polling stations, except for small polling stations at which less than 500 electors are assigned to vote, dedicated polling stations, the Election Committee constituency polling station and the polling station at the Penny's Bay Quarantine Centre will be designated as counting stations for the counting of the geographical constituency votes.

The ballot boxes of all functional constituencies and the Election Committee constituency will be delivered to the central counting station at the Convention & Exhibition Centre for counting.

Mr Fung said flexibility counts in the vote counting procedures.

“In the past, there were quite elaborate rules as to vote counting, as to what sort of documents, what sort of ballot account reconciliations that the staff have to do before the vote counting starts. That was to ensure that everyone follows the same rules. But I think sometimes, flexibility is what is called for.

“Firstly, we will proceed to the vote counting once the basic documents, the basic accounts are in. If there are other discrepancies, they can be dealt with later.

“Secondly, we are going to send the functional constituency ballot boxes to the central counting station straight away without waiting for the misplaced functional constituency votes in the geographical constituency ballot boxes.

“And if there were misplaced functional constituency votes in the geographical constituency ballot boxes upon counting of the geographical constituency votes, those will then be sealed and sent to the central counting station.

“Thirdly, we have instructed the supervisors to look at the entire situation. Even if some rules were not met in strict compliance, and if the situation warrants, then we will continue with the voting. And we will deal with these discrepancies with reconciliations later.”

As for the boundary control point polling stations, Mr Fung said they will adopt closed-loop management. To enhance the openness and transparency of the counting process there, Independent Commission Against Corruption officers will monitor the process and the Registration & Electoral Office is making arrangements for live broadcasts of the vote counting, he added.

A total of 153 candidates will run for 90 seats on election day on December 19.

About 630 ordinary polling stations and not more than 24 dedicated polling stations will be open on polling day for over 4.47 million registered electors to cast their votes.

The polling hours for the ordinary polling stations will be from 8.30am to 10.30pm.

Mr Fung reminded electors to carry their Hong Kong identity card to the designated polling station as specified on their poll card to vote.