Number of registered Hong Kong voters falls for second year in a row as District Council election confirmed for Dec. 10

Hong Kong has close to 83,000 fewer registered voters in 2023, according to provisional figures announced by the government on Tuesday, making it the second consecutive year the number of voters in the city had fallen.

According to the Registration and Electoral Office (REO), there are currently 4.33 million registered voters in geographical constituencies, 82,705 fewer than last year.

election voting voters ballot box polls election committee 2021 sept 19 — File Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

In the latest registration cycle, the government received around 31,300 new voter registrations. Meanwhile, 31,000 records were removed after registered voters died, and 81,100 records were removed “as a result of other inquiry processes,” the REO said.

The number of young voters aged 30 or below also dropped by just over 10 per cent, from 622,446 to 558,286, according to the provisional figures from 2022 and 2023.

The provisional voter figures were revealed after the government announced that the first overhauled District Council election will be held on December 10 this year.

The Legislative Council (LegCo) unanimously passed a government proposal to change how the local-level advisory bodies were appointed last month.

Plans to overhaul the District Council election were unveiled in May to ensure only “patriots” could be elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019. The number of seats chosen democratically will be slashed to around 20 per cent, with the rest chosen by the city’s leader, government-appointed committees and officials.

Constituency boundaries will be redrawn and each local council will be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates will undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.

The overhaul came after the LegCo election was overhauled in March 2021. While the number of seats in the legislature was increased from 70 to 90, democratic representation in the chamber was reduced.

The city has seen declining voter registrations in recent years following an increase during the 2019 extradition bill protests, with a total of over 800,000 new electors recorded in 2019 and 2020.

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