| 2001 voter registration drive to launch next month |
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The 2001 voter registration campaign will be launched in mid-February to encourage eligible people to sign up as electors.
The four-week exercise, which will run from February 19 until March 16, also aims at reminding registered electors who have moved homes to update their addresses with the Registration and Electoral Office (REO). The Principal Assistant Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Ms Doris Ho, said today (January 26): "We will adopt a targetted approach, focussing our efforts on measures which have proven to be effective in the past in enhancing the registration rate. "Young people aged between 18 and 25 remain our prime targets. Temporary registration counters will be set up in premises frequented by young people, namely youth centres, shopping arcades and tertiary institutions. Through the network of the District Offices, assistance from secondary schools will be sought in a bid to encourage their senior form students to get registered as electors. "As part of the exercise, we will pay household visits to new residential areas to help the incoming inhabitants to get registered, to confirm or update their address records on the existing electoral rolls." The voter registration campaign will be supplemented by a homepage with appealing designs and a publicity programme to remind all eligible people, including those turning 18, to get registered as the first step to enable their participation in future Legislative Council and District Councils elections. Voter registration forms can be downloaded from the Voter Registration website: http://www.voterregistration.gov.hk. "In addition to the conventional method of submitting application forms by post or fax, eligible people could also register on-line as electors starting from November 9 last year with REO joining the Electronic Service Delivery Scheme," Ms Ho added. Members of the public can make enquiries about voter registration by calling the hotline - 2891 1001. The voter registration campaign launched last year received 248 800 forms from new voters. The electoral records of about 213 500 voters were also updated in the exercise. End/Friday, January 26, 2001 NNNN |