Govt to spend HK$528m for 2025 Legislative Council election

The government will be reserving about HK$528 million for the Registration and Electoral Office to hold the 2025 Legislative Council election, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs revealed on Wednesday.

The sum includes about HK$379 million for the preparation of the election, HK$57 million for the cost of staff and conducting the voter registration campaign this year, and HK$92 million for other election-related expenditures.

As for the District Council election last year, the bureau said the preparatory work commenced in 2022-23 and the actual expenditure incurred in that fiscal year was about HK$168 million.

The revised estimate for 2023-24 and the provision for 2024-25 for the preparation and conduct of this election were about HK$992 million and HK$58 million, respectively.

Among last year’s expenditure, about HK$235 million went to staff costs and HK$122 million went to publicity.

The remaining HK$635 million was spent on hiring venues, manning polling and counting stations, financial assistance scheme, transportation, postage, free mailing, printing, and rental cost of temporary offices and stores, etc.

As for the Electronic Poll Register system which failed on the polling day on December 10, the bureau said the REO conducted an open tender in 2020 for the design, supply, implementation and maintenance services of the system.

A contract valued at about HK$45 million was subsequently awarded in January 2021.

The bureau also said in the 2023 voter registration cycle, the REO received a total of about 51,000 voter registration applications, about 18,600, or 36.4 percent of which failed to be registered.

The current staff establishment of the Voter Registration Division responsible for voter registration matters under the REO is 124.