HK Voters Wouldn't Trust E-voting Now, Says Analyst

Political analyst Ma Ngok has disputed a Beijing lawmaker’s suggestion that the Legislative Council elections could be conducted electronically next year, saying he doesn’t think voters will trust the government to ensure their anonymity.

Ma made the comment on Tuesday after a deputy to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, Tam Yiu-chung, said the government should allow voters across the border to vote and develop electronic voting in case the coronavirus pandemic remains serious.

Tam said it seemed “old fashioned” for voters to have to bring their ID cards to a physical polling station and vote on paper.

However, Ma, associate professor in government and public administration at Chinese University, said there are reasons why paper ballots are still widely used in major elections around the world.

“It is the tradition form. It’s easily understood by everybody,” said Ma.

“[With] e-voting, of course, there’s a problem of violating the principle of secret ballot. Because voters may be uncertain that the government can collect all the voting information, you know, who votes for the governing party and who votes for the opposition,” he said.

“This will violate a very important principle of secret voting commonly understood in liberal democracies,” he told RTHK’s Maggie Ho.

He said with the “very low confidence” Hong Kong people has in the current government, electronic voting will not get strong public support.

Ma also said he doesn’t think the Covid-19 pandemic provides any strong basis to postpone the election, being as people still go to work “all day, every day”.

“If it’s only for the convenience of people who are not living in Hong Kong to cast the vote, we can think about other means, like postal ballots,” he said.

Still, Ma said any changes to the voting method involve consultation and research which the SAR government apparently hasn’t done.

“It entails change of legislation and a lot of technical arrangements, which I don’t think the government is ready in one year’s time,” said Ma.