Voting Systems
District Boards and Municipal Councils
139. The system of voting used in the 1985 elections to the District Peards, and in 1986 for the directly elected seats on the Municipal Councils, the 'first past the post' system in which the candidate (or candidates in the case of multi-seat constituencies) with the largest number of votes won. The system worked well and there has been no suggestion for change.
The Legislative Council
140. Feedback from candidates and members of the public, together with reviews conducted by the Administration, have identified the need to consider whether changes should be made to the voting systems used for indirect elections to the Legislative Council.
The functional constituencies
141. The preferential 'addition' system of voting was used in the functional constituencies in 1985. In this system, voters are required to mark down preferences on the ballot paper. The candidate who receives over 50 per cent of the first preference votes wins. If no such winner emerges, a second count is made in which second preferences are added to the first preference totals secured in the first count: the candidate who secures the highest aggregate first and second preference votes wins, provided the aggregate is more than 50 per cent of the basic number of voters. If no candidate wins, a third count taking into account third preference votes is carried out, and so on until a winner is declared.
142. There was criticism by some sectors of the community that the method of aggregating the number of first and subsequent preference votes could in theory result in a candidate with the fewest first preference votes winning the election, as in the following example (assuming 100 voters):
Candidate
A
B
1st preference
45
45
ön
C
10
2nd preference
15
20
65
Total of 1st & 2nd preferences
60
65
75
(3rd preference)
(40)
(35)
(25)
(Total votes)
(100)
(100)
(100)
Candidate C wins despite having the least first preference votes, mainly because the method gives equal weight to first, second and subsequent preferences. It was claimed that, besides being unfair, this provided scope for manipulation whereby candidates could instruct their supporters to write in only their first
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