Record Low Turnout for "Patriots-Only" District Council Election

Voter turnout at 27.5 percent, with a computer glitch near end

The day after the District Council elections, the government and the liaison office insisted the "patriots-only" election was "a success in improving governance structure", and that it was a "real, functioning democracy", even though there was a record low turnout.

Of the 4.33 million registered voters, only 1,193,193 or 27.5 percent came out. However, of those who voted, 22,045 residents cast blank votes which were invalid, representing 1.85 percent of the overall figure. This compares to 0.56 percent invalid votes four years ago, when 71. 2 percent of voters came out during the height of the 2019 protests.

Most of the voters this year were the elderly who were bussed in, as well as public servants who had to cast ballots.

Ip says "extending hours was completely useless"

Despite the low participating figures, Beijing claimed the election implemented the principle of "patriots governing Hong Kong".

"The district councils have restored their proper nature and functions, freeing the election from politicisation, populism, and pragmatically focusing on solving real problems in the community," the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said in a statement.

"Residents can deeply feel that the elections are related to their interests and that this is real, functioning democracy."

How about a "functioning democracy" with Chinese characteristics? Pro-democracy candidates were barred from running, even centrist pro-establishment parties could not get enough nominations.

Nevertheless, some pro-Beijng lawmakers were not pleased with the turnout, like Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, founder and chairperson of the New People's Party.

There was a computer system glitch two hours before voting was supposed to finish, so in a bid to get more voters in, the time was extended by another 90 minutes past midnight.

Ip said afterwards "extending hours was completely useless", the extra one and a half did not yield a significant uptick in voters.

But Tam Yiu-chung, vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau said the election turnout was in line with expectations.

He claimed residents cared more about the Legislative Council elections than District Council ones, and that people were out of town so they couldn't cast ballots.

However, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu hailed it as a "high-quality" election, but surely there are questions as to why so much money was spent on getting people to vote but the end result was so few.

Was the turnout really in line with expectations? The spinning will continue for days to come...