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E-news Issue 271

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EOC Chairperson Mr Ricky CHU Man-kin visited the mock polling station at North Point Community Hall on 14 December to review the facilitation measures to be provided on the 2021 Legislative Council General Election polling day for electors with special needs.

EOC Chairperson visits mock polling station ahead of LegCo General Election

With the 2021 Legislative Council General Election coming up on 19 December, Mr Ricky CHU Man-kin, EOC Chairperson visited a mock polling station at North Point Community Hall this Wednesday (14 December) to review the measures in place that facilitate electors with special needs.

Among the new measures introduced by the Registration and Electoral Office (REO) is the setting-up of a special queue that gives priority to specified groups for collecting their ballot papers. They include pregnant women; persons aged 70 or above; and those unable to queue for a long time or have difficulty in queuing due to illness, injury, disability or dependence on mobility aids.

In addition, magnifying glasses will be made available at polling stations to help people with visual impairment view the display of the Electronic Poll Register System at the ballot paper-issuing desks.

To familiarise non-ethnic Chinese voters with the process, key information in various languages has been uploaded to the election’s dedicated website as well. They include Bahasa Indonesia, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese and Urdu, with Vietnamese being a new addition.

Mr Ricky CHU, EOC Chairperson said, “The right to political participation should not be undermined because of one’s gender, race or disability. We are therefore pleased to see that the REO has taken proactive steps to ensure that all eligible voters can exercise their right to vote equally in the upcoming election.”

Nonetheless, it came to the EOC’s attention that as at 1 December 2021, a considerable number of the candidates in both the Geographical Constituencies and Functional Constituencies had not yet provided a text version and/or English version of their Electoral Message.

“We appeal to the candidates to try their best, when sharing information about their vision, to accommodate the needs of voters with visual challenges and those who do not read Chinese,” said Mr Chu. “Addressing such information assymetry goes to the core of diversity and inclusion, which are essential to the sustainable development of Hong Kong.”

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