$380m budget for Legco elections

Some HK$380 million will be spent for next year's Legislative Council elections, while the failed electronic poll register system in the revamped District Council elections last December 10 cost the government HK$45 million, chief electoral officer Raymond Wang Man-chiu told lawmakers.

At a special Legco Finance Committee meeting, Wang said the provision for election expenses in the current financial year is about HK$528 million, with HK$379 million for the 2025 Legco election.

Some HK$57 million will go to staff costs for the preparation and conduct of the voter registration campaign this year and another HK$92 million for other election-related expenditures, including the completion of follow-up work for last December's District Council election and the conduct of by-elections if needed.

Wang also said the Registration and Electoral Office plans to increase their manpower by 16 despite having no election this year.

"The REO plans to create 22 additional civil service posts. With six posts to be abolished this year, the net increase of posts is 16," Wang said. "These posts are mainly used for carrying out relevant preparatory work for the Election Committee Subsector By-elections and Legco election next year."

He said the government spent over HK$992 million to hold the DC election, of which HK$112 million was used for publicity and HK$235 million for staff costs.

The remaining HK$635 million were for other expenses including hiring venues, manning polling and counting stations and financial assistance schemes.

Wang said the Electronic Poll Register System, which broke down towards the end of the DC election, cost HK$45 million.

Sources added that the investigation report on the system crash will be announced later this week, around four months after the incident. The Executive Council has already discussed and accepted the report from the Registration and Electoral Office.

It is understood that there are no major differences in the conclusion from the interim report, which pointed out that the computer system became overloaded after 11 hours of voting.

The government has also given orders to closely monitor electronic systems and prevent them from causing any hiccups in the future.