The President of the Electoral Affairs Committee for the Legislative Assembly Election, Mr Ip Son Sang, said the election today (15 September) went on smoothly and the polling stations operated in a fairly good order during today's election. He made the remarks when he gave a conclusion of the general situation of the polls which closed at 9:00pm. In a stand-up briefing at 11:00pm, he said the operation of the Committee had been delayed for one hour and 10 minutes because of two candidates' behaviour at two polling stations before vote-counting, adding that one was taken away by Public Security Police after disobeying repeated orders by polling officers to stop. He expressed his regret and denounced their conduct, pointing out that candidates should have stronger law-abiding consciousness and higher morality. He also said the incident had resulted in delaying the entire process of the Electoral Affairs Committee, including the statistical data and the release of voter turnout information. Electoral Affairs Committee staff would speed up vote-counting and complete the work as soon as possible, Mr Ip said. He said that 13 voters had been detained by police for further investigation for allegedly taking photographs of their votes with mobile phones: one was required to assist in the investigation. He added the Electoral Affairs Committee had repeatedly appealed and issued clear guidelines against the use of mobile phones in polling stations. Mr Ip said also said the voting rate was a bit lower than the previous election, for various reasons including the increase of registered voters. The authorities would have further studies on this, he added.
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