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BEC to publish revised election guidelines
The Boundary and Election Commission (BEC) will tomorrow (Friday) publish the revised guidelines on election-related activities for the September Legislative Council Elections, after taking into account the representations received in the one- month public consultation in April.
The BEC Chairman, Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing, said the revised guidelines contained improvements to the electoral arrangements to ensure that they would be open, fair, and honest.
The BEC received a total of 33 written submissions and met seven individuals and organisations to listen to their views on the proposed guidelines.
The Chairman said although there had been suggestions for a "cooling-off day" on the polling day when all electioneering activities would be banned, many people, after consultation, agreed that it would be more practicable to set up a "no canvassing area" outside each polling station.
Mr Justice Woo also outlined the major electoral arrangements for the September elections:
Polling Arrangements
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There will be a "centralised" polling station each for the Election Committee Constituency, the Urban Council, Regional Council and Rural functional constituencies (FCs). For the remaining 26 FCs, polling will be held on a territory-wide basis and in the same 492 polling stations designated for the geographical constituency (GC) elections.
In each polling station for both GC and FCs, there will be two sets of ballot boxes, one for the relevant GC and the other for the 26 FCs.
The ballot papers for the GC and the different FCs are easily distinguishable by different colour patterns. Each of the 26 FCs will be assigned both a letter code and a Chinese character code printed on the front of the ballot paper (the letter code will also be printed on the back of the ballot paper) to facilitate easy identification in the polling and counting process.