Almost 90 percent turnout rate for Election Committee election

Almost 90 percent of around 4,900 eligible voters cast their ballots in the Election Committee election today, electing members of the powerful committee tasked with electing Hong Kong's chief executive and 40 lawmakers.

The turnout rate of 89.5 percent is the highest ever since the handover, while the number of voters - 4,385 - is the lowest.

In the last Election Committee election in November 2016, 107,841 voters out of 231,769 eligible voters cast ballots. The turnout rate was 46.5 per cent.

As for the election today, 4,385 out of around 4,900 eligible voters cast their ballots to elect 364 out of 1,500 members of the Election Committee. The remaining seats are uncontested.

Three sub sectors reached a 100 percent turnout, including the legal sector with 30 voters, architectural, surveying, planning and landscape sub sector with 55 voters, and IT sub sector with 54 voters.

The electorate shrinked dramatically after electoral changes this year. But authorities maintained that the voters are "more representative" and are patriots. 

The voter turnout rate of nearly 90 per cent today reflected the support for the new electoral system by members of various subsectors, CE Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said. 

"As the first elections held after the approval by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the amended Annex I and Annex II to the Basic Law to improve the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, these elections are particularly meaningful. They mark the implementation of the principle of 'patriots administering Hong Kong' in the political system of the HKSAR, the safeguarding of sovereignty, security and development interests of the nation, and the steadfast and successful implementation of 'One Country, Two Systems'," she said.