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The following is issued on behalf of the Electoral Affairs Commission:
Three amendment regulations made by the Electoral Affairs Commission to ensure the smooth conduct of the 2006 Election Committee subsector elections were gazetted today (May 19).
A commission spokesman said that the amendments introduced by these amendment regulations fell under three categories.
"The first category is amendments consequential to the Chief Executive Election and Legislative Council Election (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2006 (the Amendment Ordinance) which came into effect on May 13. These amendments mainly arise from the provisions in the Amendment Ordinance relating to compilation and publication of an interim register after an Election Committee subsector ordinary election, and disqualification of candidates for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Heung Yee Kuk, and the District Council subsectors," the spokesman said.
The second category is amendments to align the electoral procedures for Election Committee subsector elections, where appropriate, with those for the Legislative Council election in 2004, and to rationalise certain electoral arrangements. These include, among others, electoral arrangements which facilitate the counting of votes, and increase the penalty for unauthorised filming, photographing, audio/video recording within a polling station.
The last category is technical amendments to remove obsolete provisions.
The spokesman said that the amendments would cover the following three regulations under the Electoral Affairs Commission Ordinance:
* the Electoral Affairs Commission (Registration) (Electors for Legislative Council Functional Constituencies) (Voters for Election Committee Subsectors) (Members of Election Committee) Regulation (Cap 541B);
* the Electoral Affairs Commission (Nominations Advisory Committees (Election Committee)) Regulation (Cap 541H); and
* the Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Election Committee) Regulation (Cap 541I).
The amendment regulations will be tabled in the Legislative Council on May 24 (Wednesday).
Ends/Friday, May 19, 2006
Issued at HKT 16:23
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