The Electoral Affairs Commission for the Legislative Assembly Election holds a work meeting.
The Electoral Affairs Commission for the Legislative Assembly Election hopes that with fewer than 20 days remaining until the start of the campaign period, all candidate lists plan and prepare thoroughly in order to utilise fully the official campaign channels and platforms, and so promote to voters their respective political platform and visions.
The Chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission, Mr Seng Ioi Man, today gave that information to the press after a work meeting.
Under the Legislative Assembly Election Law, each candidate list is entitled to appoint one primary and one alternative representative at each polling station to monitor voting activities. Representatives must be eligible voters and may only represent one candidate list at one polling station.
The Electoral Affairs Commission issued a reminder that trustees of candidate lists must submit between 16 and 25 August the names of polling station representatives, to allow time for the issuance of identity certificates.
These certificates must be collected from the election services counter no later than two days before election day.
Mr Seng noted that candidate lists had on 8 August participated in a draw to allocate airtime slots on TDM’s Chinese- and Portuguese-language television and radio channels, as well as to allocate the use of 18 public campaign venues. The process was completed smoothly, with participation from all candidate lists.
The campaign period will commence at midnight on 30 August. The Electoral Affairs Commission urged all candidate lists to plan early and make full use of official promotional channels and platforms, alongside campaigning methods funded under each candidate list’s budget, to present their respective political platforms and visions to voters during the 14-day period, aiming to secure voter support in the 14 September election.
Mr Seng called on all candidate lists to adhere strictly to the Legislative Assembly Election Law and the Electoral Affairs Commission’s guidelines, including regulations on the use and distribution of campaign materials, during the campaign period. Outside this period, any form of campaigning is prohibited.
To facilitate representatives of candidate lists in balancing monitoring duties and exercising their voting rights, the Electoral Affairs Commission has resolved that all representatives must cast their votes at the polling stations where they are assigned. Trustees of candidate lists are advised to inform representatives accordingly. The rights and responsibilities of such representatives during voting and vote-counting are clearly defined in the Legislative Assembly Election Law, and all candidate lists must adhere to them.
Additionally, the Electoral Affairs Commission will release on Wednesday (13 August) two instructional videos titled “How to Vote” and “Voting Confidentiality”, further to educate voters on procedures and key considerations.
In addition, since the launch of the polling station enquiry service on 5 August, over 116,000 enquiries have been made via either the Macao One Account platform, a telephone hotline, or self-service kiosks. This showed growing public interest in the upcoming election, particularly regarding voting logistics, noted Mr Seng.
