A total of 4,505 eligible voters cast their ballots in today's election of members of the Fourth Chief Executive Election Committee, representing a turnout rate of 82.69 per cent. The President of the Electoral Affairs Commission for the Chief Executive Election, Ms Song Man Lei, said the high turnout rate showed the active support of diverse sectors and underlined the legitimacy of the poll. Voting took place between 9 am and 6 pm today, and vote-counting began immediately upon the closing of polls. As of 7 pm, all the ballots have been checked manually and the electronic vote counting process, which is expected to take six hours, had begun, according to Ms Song. Speaking to reporters after the closing of polls, Ms Song said the labour sub-sector had the highest turnout rate, at 92.14 per cent, followed by the educational sub-sector at 86.64 per cent; the social services sub-sector at 84.37 per cent; the industrial, commercial and financial sector at 83.39 per cent; the sports sub-sector at 80.69 per cent; the professional sub-sector at 80.38 per cent; and the cultural sub-sector at 66.56 per cent. She said the Electoral Affairs Commission received 18 complaints by telephone and the Public Security Police had received one complaint related to today's election. The complaints were mostly about the disturbance of voters outside polling stations and people shouting too loud outside one polling station, noted Ms Song, adding that the commission was investigating these complaints. She also told reporters that according to election officers, some people had stayed inside the "no waiting" areas outside polling stations during today's voting. After considering the situation, the Electoral Affairs Commission decided that these people had not seriously disrupted the voting and therefore election officers merely urged them to leave the "no waiting" area, she said. Ms Song concluded that order was maintained at the polls today.
