Electoral affairs chief apologises for results delay

The head of the Electoral Affairs Commission, Barnabas Fung, said on Monday he’s very sorry for the delay in the announcement of the Election Committee results, saying the time needed “far exceeded reasonable expectations”.

He had said on Sunday that he expected all results to be announced at around midnight – or six hours after voting ended.

However, the results of the first sub-sector – involving around 50 votes – did not come until 3am, and the full results only came in at around 8am.

Fung said initial findings showed that there were problems with the ballot verification papers, likely because of officials filling in the wrong boxes.

“The problem mainly lies with the hand fill-in ballot paper account – there are some minor discrepancies,” he told reporters.

“We’re looking into the problem as to whether counting could still be conducted side-by-side with the reconciliation of the ballot paper account.”

Fung insisted the problem had nothing to do with the electronic voter registrar or the automatic counting system, saying they mostly worked smoothly except for the jamming of the counting paper a few times.

Fung pledged a thorough review of the problem and a report will be filed to the Chief Executive.
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Last updated: 2021-09-20 HKT 10:04