Glitch probe as poll chief tackles fallout

David Lok Kai-hong, chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission, sobbed as he apologized yesterday over an electronic poll register system glitch that interrupted the district council election and said he would accept punishment.

Lok said he felt he let colleagues and voters down, especially those not able to cast their ballot, and apologized for falling short of expectations.

He said he was very confident the commission could get a praiseworthy report card before the system failure and that EAC could work in concert with the revamped electoral system.

"Besides feeling helpless I have nothing to say," he went on. "We have to be responsible and investigate what went wrong. I am fine if someone needs to be held accountable after the probe is completed."

The electronic voters' register system failed at 8pm on Sunday, two-and-a-half hours before voting was supposed to close and forcing staff at more than 600 polling stations to switch to printed registers to verify voter identities. That meant polling time was extended for 90 minutes until midnight.

But some candidates said the wait spurred some voters to leave.

Legislators slammed the arrangement, with Liberal Party chairman Peter Shiu Ka-fai saying even if polling time was extended by 90 minutes "the system failure let citizens down, and some of those who intended to cast ballots might have been driven away by the long queues."

Fellow legislator Lo Wai-kwok, head of the Business and Professionals Alliance, said the commission should have activated a contingency plan as soon as possible, reviewed the reliability of the system and "organized drills for emergency situations."

Political heavyweight Tam Yiu-chung said relying on computers called for backup plans.

"This kind of thing happens often. But this is an election everyone is watching, so we need to consolidate our experiences," he said.

On candidates filing appeals on the results due to the glitch, Tam said it would be hard to judge the number of voters backing particular candidates.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu was highly concerned, saying: "I've ordered the commission to set up an independent investigation task force to find out the cause of the problem and submit a report within three months to ensure similar incidents do not happen again."

The task force will be led by commission member and senior counsel Bernard Man, as well as representatives from the office of the government chief information officer, the Registration and Electoral Office and officers from the police force's Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau.

Francis Fong Po-kiu, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said the system failure could have been caused by a problem at the cloud server's database.

"A problem might have occurred when the system was carrying out a search for voters' personal information, causing the system to halt and stop working," he said. "This is a very common problem, but [EAC] should really review the reason why they did not use a backup cloud server system or implement other backup measures."

Fong said the system design could ensure people cannot cast ballots repeatedly, and indications from the system failure did not resemble a cyber attack.

The electronic poll register system, which cost the government HK$45 million in 2021, had shown problems in previous elections.

In the Election Committee subsector poll in September 2021 an investigation found the ballot-counting system ignored two votes due to an incorrect setting, while another station missed seven votes.

After trying to make improvements, the system showed power, internet and stability problems in the Legislative Council elections three months later and caused the commission to extend polling time.

michael.shum@singtaonewscorp.com