Amendments to the Chief Executive election petition rules and Chief Executive election electoral procedure regulation will be gazetted Friday. The amendments to the petition rules are consequential to the Chief Executive Election & Legislative Council Election (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2006, which came into effect May 13.

The amended Chief Executive Election Ordinance provides that, if only one candidate is validly nominated, election proceedings shall continue. It also provides additional ground for election petitions. In circumstances where a sole candidate is declared not elected in an uncontested election, petitions may be made that the candidate shall be elected.

The Amendment Rules will amend the Chief Executive Election (Election Petition) Rules to include the additional ground for election petitions and to make appropriate changes to the petition form.

The amendments to the Electoral Procedure (Chief Executive Election) Regulation cover the detailed arrangements for the conduct of a poll at a Chief Executive election in which only one candidate is validly nominated. These arrangements will be largely modelled on, where appropriate, those for a contested election.

There are also amendments to align the electoral procedures for the Chief Executive election, where appropriate, with those for the Legislative Council election in 2004 and those for the Election Committee subsector elections in 2006.

These include arrangements concerning the counting of votes and keeping order at polling stations, and increasing the penalty for unauthorised filming, photographing or audio and video recording in a polling station.

The two amended laws will be tabled at the Legislative Council on October 18.