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The Electoral Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Bill 2015 was published in the Gazette today (December 11). The Bill is aimed at making technical amendments to several pieces of electoral legislation and relevant legislation so as to prepare for the various public elections to be held in 2016 and 2017.
In order to improve the clarity of relevant provisions, and to align the electoral arrangements of different public elections, the Bill introduces some technical amendments to the electoral laws, e.g., extending certain electoral deadlines in case of inclement weather and clarification of delivery methods of certain electoral documents. Such arrangements are already in place for public elections such as the Legislative Council (LegCo) election and the District Council election. The Bill amends relevant legislation related to the Election Committee subsector elections and the Chief Executive election, so as to align the electoral arrangements of these two elections with other public elections. The Bill also includes necessary technical amendments to the electorate of Election Committee subsectors.
Separately, the Bill proposes to align to one later deadline for filing of election returns for candidates of the same election (including contested and uncontested candidates), so as to assist candidates in preparing their election returns in accordance with the statutory requirements.
"We plan to introduce the Bill into the LegCo for first and second readings on December 16, 2015. We hope that the LegCo would pass the Bill as soon as possible so that the amendments could take effect as early as possible," a government spokesman said.
Ends/Friday, December 11, 2015
Issued at HKT 12:01
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