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In the recent Municipal Council elections in March, some 120,000 of the official election mail were returned undelivered to the Registration and Electoral Office. In addition, the Registration and Electoral Office discovered about 50,000 suspected cases of incorrect personal particulars in the current electoral roll through its earlier updating and matching exercises. Thus, on the basis of the information available to us, about 170,000 out of the 2.45 million entries on the current electoral roll are suspected to be outdated. This represents about 7% of the total electorate. Even allowing for other cases of wrong information not known to us, it is estimated that inaccuracy of the current electoral roll should at most be not more than 10%.
We attach great importance to maintaining the accuracy of the electoral roll. However, under our existing system, the accuracy of the electoral roll depends, to a large extent, on the initiative of the electors themselves to report to the Registration and Electoral Office of any changes.
The Registration and Electoral Office arranges intensive publicity to encourage and remind electors to report changes of particulars. For instance, in the 1994 voter registration exercise, we obtained and updated information of over 330,000 electors on the electoral roll.
In the annual compilation of the new electoral roll, the Registration and Electoral Office takes active steps to trace the whereabouts of electors who are suspected to have changed addresses. Through this process of vetting, latest information obtained from electors would be reflected in the new electoral roll.
Apart from updating the roll in response to information provided by electors, the Registration and Electoral Office has also adopted a pro-active approach to update the roll through special matching exercises. The electors' particulars on the roll are matched against records kept by the Registration of Person's Office, the Housing Department, the Housing Society, the Transport Department and the Post Office. Where more current information appears on these records, the electoral roll would be updated accordingly.
I am sure Members will appreciate that, despite all the measures taken by the Government to update the electoral roll, ultimately our electoral roll can only be as accurate as our electors want it to be. It is our civic duty to register as an elector and it is our obligation to inform the Registration and Electoral Office of any changes of particulars after we have registered.
End/Wednesday, April 26, 1995