A Kowloon City Court magistrate has jailed a woman for registering as a voter with a bogus address in order to vote for her brother in the 2011 district council election. Photo: RTHK
A former District Councillor’s sister has been sentenced to six weeks in prison, after she admitted registering as a voter with a bogus address in order to vote for her brother in 2011.
The councillor, Choi Luk-sing, was seeking a re-election in Wong Tai Sin at the time.
Kowloon City Court heard that he had asked his sister, Choi Kai-kwan, to vote for him. The prosecution said after the woman gave Choi Luk-sing her identity card number, someone had her address changed to one in Diamond Hill.
The woman thus became a voter in the Wong Tai Sin constituency and cast a ballot for her brother. But he did not get re-elected.
The woman pleaded guilty to one count of "engaging in corrupt conduct with respect to voting at an election".
In passing sentence, magistrate Peter Law said fair elections are an important component of the advancement of democracy. He added although Choi Luk-sing had lost in the polls, his action had already damaged a fair election and impaired society’s core values.
But, Law said he accepted that the defendant, who is now 73 years old, had only committed the crime upon her brother’s request, and that money was not involved. He, therefore, sentenced the defendant to six weeks instead of the minimum of 12 weeks imprisonment that is stipulated for such offences.
http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1233475-20160104.htm
