Hong Kong district council election: voter turnout hits record low 27.5%, task force to investigate computer glitch

Hong Kong’s first district council poll after an electoral overhaul ordered by Beijing has yielded a turnout of 27.54 per cent, a record low since the return to Chinese rule in 1997, despite officials, tycoons and political leaders mounting an unrelenting drive to get out the vote and a sudden extension of polling hours.

The turnout for Sunday’s poll was a sharp drop from the 71.23 per cent recorded in the last municipal-level vote in 2019 held at the height of the anti-government protests in which the opposition bloc scored a landslide victory, and also down 8.28 percentage points from the previous lowest participation rate of 35.82 per cent in 1999.