Border hiccup as voters gripe about scarce info

Wallis Wang

More than 14,000 of the 22,000 registered voters in the mainland cast their ballots at the three border polling stations set up for the first time due to the pandemic.

Voters said the process at Heung Yuen Wai, Lo Wu and the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line was smooth and it took them less than half an hour to finish voting.

But some said they had only received limited information on the candidates and mostly from state-run news websites.

More than 370,000 Hong Kong residents are living across the border, according to mainland authorities statistics.

At Lo Wu, some Shenzhen residents misunderstood that the border was reopened after seeing dozens of people queuing outside the control point.

As of 6pm yesterday, around 14,000 Hongkongers - 63 percent of 22,000 registered voters in the mainland - had cast their vote, Electoral Affairs Commission chairman Barnabas Fung Wah said.

Fung said Lok Ma Chau saw the highest turnout rate as more than 6,000 of 8,800 registered voters - 68 percent - for that station cast their ballot. More than 6,100 and 7,000 voted at Heung Yuen Wai and Lo Wu, respectively.

Shiu, a Hongkonger living in Beijing, flew to Shenzhen on Saturday and cast his vote at Heung Yuen Wai port at 10.30am yesterday. Shiu said he only needed to present his ID card to get the ballot and the whole process took around 20 minutes.

He said the closed-loop management at the polling station was satisfactory and staff there did a good job in disinfection. Voters had to wear masks and disinfect their hands, he added.

Shiu said he was happy to vote and fulfill his civic responsibility.

Another Hongkonger, Tang, said the process was smooth. He added: "I came to the polling station early so I had to wait for more than 10 minutes. There were a dozen people waiting in line at the beginning but the queue moved quickly."

However, some voters said they did not have sufficient knowledge about the candidates.

Tsang, a female voter for the New Territories North geographical constituency who lives in Shenzhen, said she did not know how many candidates were running in the district. She voted at Heung Yuen Wai

Tsang, who had voted in Hong Kong before, said she only learned about candidates' information and political views on the liaison office website, TV programs and pro-Beijing media, including Wen Wei Po.

Another Kowloon Central district voter living in Shenzhen, Yu, knew there were three candidates in the district.

But he could not receive any information related to the election in the mainland and could only check each candidate's political views at the polling station.

Another man, So, was rejected from entering the Lo Wu polling station. He said he wanted to vote but did not know he had to register online as he did not receive any notice.

Shenzhen authorities had banned people who had been to medium- or high-risk areas within 14 days or those infected with Covid within three months from entering the polling stations even if they had registered.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com