Dramatic slump in figures follows SCMP exposé last year of old people being ferried to polling stations and allegedly told how to vote
JEFFIE.LAM@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Sunday, 12 June, 2016, 11:19pm
The Evergreen Nursing House in Hung Hom. Photo: Edward Wong
The number of registered voters living in private elderly homes in Hong Kong has plunged 43.3 per cent since last year, the Post has found, after revelations that groups of old people were ferried to polling stations in the District Council elections last year and allegedly told who to vote for.
The development follows a citywide check by the elections watchdog on voters living in institutions for the elderly – which in 2015 emerged as the main source of a registration spike among those aged 56 or above.
Operators of elderly homes noted political parties were less enthusiastic about conducting voter registration campaigns for the Legislative Council elections this year than they were before the polls last year.
A Post study of the 2016 provisional electoral roll found that the number of voters in private nursing homes for the elderly had dropped from 3,675 in 2015 to 2,082 this year, with 13 out of 18 districts witnessing such a fall.
In Sha Tin, the number of elderly voters in such homes has shrunk 70 per cent from 117 to 34, while there was a decline of 65 per cent in Southern district and Sham Shui Po.
In one extreme case, at the Evergreen Nursing House in Hung Hom, all 42 registered voters in 2015 had vanished in the latest roll. At the Ap Lei Chau Home for the Elderly, only six voters were registered compared with 95 last year.
In 2015, the Post found that the number of registered voters at private elderly homes in seven out of the 18 districts studied had shot up. A caretaker at the Kam Ma Home of Aged in Hung Hom revealed that the main pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, had encouraged residents to register as voters by giving out gifts. Those who found it difficult to sign the form would simply “write a cross”.
The Post later reported how residents of that nursing home were taken to a polling station in the District Council elections in November in vans arranged by a pro-Beijing candidate. The exposé sparked concerns about whether residents were being manipulated into voting, especially when some admitted they would vote according to the advice of “volunteers”.
The Registration and Electoral Office confirmed it had conducted checks on elderly institutions and that voters who failed to reply when asked if the registered address was their principal residence had been put on the omissions list released on June 1. They would be officially removed from the electoral roll should they fail to take remedial action by June 25.
Not many of them want to be taken to the station on polling day
A MANAGER AT THE EVERGREEN NURSING HOUSE
It had also sent guidelines on voter registration activities and clean elections to all elderly homes through the Social Welfare Department in late March.
A manager at the Evergreen Nursing House, who gave only his surname Kwok, said most residents and their families had decided not to respond to the watchdog’s inquiry “to save trouble”.
“The senior residents are happy whenever there are candidates or others visiting them, but actually not many of them want to be taken to the station on polling day,” Kwok told the Post.
Kwok noted that different parties did make a huge effort in conducting voter registration in elderly homes last year, but the same enthusiasm was not evident so far this year.
“Perhaps it is a good thing to have the issue reported, so the [candidates or interested parties] would not be too reckless” in ferrying senior residents, Kwok said.
A caretaker surnamed Mok at the Ap Lei Chau Home for the Elderly said most of the old voters did not get back to the watchdog because they had died, moved or fallen ill.
Lawmaker Wong Kwok-kin said there were numerous factors that could have led to the drop in voter registrations. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Wong Kwok-kin questioned the fairness of the watchdog’s move to place the elderly people on the omission list, saying some might not be able to understand its letter.
A lot of factors contributed to the huge drop as the health of old people could deteriorate greatly within a year, he said, adding that the public should not overly interpret the drop in registrations.
Democratic Party lawmaker Helena Wong Pik-wan welcomed the watchdog’s check and said the “dubious” sharp drop in the number of voters at elderly homes should be investigated.
“Why would there be such a spike in voter registration last year? Were the senior residents already in such serious condition when the registration took place?” she asked. “If yes, why could they manage to do so and did they at the end cast their votes? All this requires further probing.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1973820/revealed-43pc-plunge-registered-voters-private-elderly-homes
