The head of the General Audit Committee of the Chief Executive Election Committee, Kuok Kin Hong, announced yesterday that his 5-member committee decided yesterday to revalidate just one of the 157 votes declared invalid after Sunday’s Chief Executive Election Committee ballot.
Kuok made the announcement yesterday afternoon at the Public Administration Building on Rua do Campo during a press conference.
The General Audit Committee concluded after reviewing all the 5,521 votes cast on Sunday that one of them, which initially had been deemed invalid, was found to be valid after yesterday’s audit.
The revalidated ballot came from the sports sector, Kuok said.
According to Kuok, a prosecutor, 6,265 voters had registered for Sunday’s secret ballot. A total of 5,521 voters elected 344 members of the 400-member Chief Executive Election Committee, with a voter turnout of 88.12 percent.
Regarding the votes cast on Sunday, the initial results showed that 5,346 were valid, with 18 ballot papers left blank and 157 initially deemed invalid. After yesterday’s review by the General Audit Committee, one ballot initially classified by the Chief Executive Election Committee on Sunday night was declared valid after yesterday’s review of all ballot papers by the General Audit Committee, thereby increasing the number of valid ballots to 5,347, accounting for 96.85 percent, i.e., an increase of 0.02 percent compared to Sunday’s initial count.
In the 2019 election, two invalid ballots, also from the sports sector, were revalidated after a review by the General Audit Committee at that time.
Kuok said that the final outcome of the election, such as the number of votes that each of the 348 candidates had received, has been uploaded onto the government’s election website as well as stuck on the display window on the ground floor of the Public Administration Building, with the aim of making the data accessible to the general public.
Any pedestrian walking past the building can read the detailed results of the election. The results are displayed in the form of about a dozen A4 printouts stuck on the display window, in Chinese and Portuguese, Macau’s two official languages.
Among the remaining 56 committee members whose seats were not contested in yesterday’s Chief Executive Election Committee election, the 12 local NPC deputies are ex officio members. According to the Chief Executive Election Law, the 22 representatives from the city’s lawmakers, the 14 representatives from among the Macau members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, and the two representatives of the members of the city’s municipal organs are chosen by their respective peers. The six members from the religious segment on the committee are chosen by the city’s main religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.
In Sunday’s election, Caritas Macau General Secretary Paul Pun Chi Meng garnered the highest number of votes – 1,275 in total – in the social services segment.
In the industrial, commercial and financial segments, MGM Chairperson and Executive Director Pansy Ho Chiu King received the highest number of votes – 831.
The ballots were transferred to the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) for formal and final verification yesterday, after which the names of the 400 committee members will be published in the Official Gazette, scheduled for next Monday.
The General Audit Committee of the Chief Executive Election Committee reviews the ballots of Sunday’s Chief Executive Election Committee election at the Public Administration Building in Rua do Campo yesterday morning, including its president, Kuok Kin Hong (right). – Photos: William Chan
The election results are being stuck on the ground-floor display window of the Public Administration Building on Rua do Campo yesterday.
