Greater Bay Area | Gov’t: No plans yet for allowing votes outside the region

The Macau government does not have any plans yet for allowing the establishment of polling stations and the bestowal of voting rights to residents living abroad and namely on the mainland, the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) told the Times in response to questions on the topic.

According to the SAFP, “the ‘Legislative Assembly Election Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region’ clearly defines the subject matter of the voting process in order to ensure fairness and justice in this process,” adding, “this Law does not contain in its provisions, a mechanism that defines the establishment of polling stations outside Macau.”
In its reply to the Times, the Bureau also said “the MSAR government, currently, does not have plans for the introduction of such a mechanism.”

Recently the Hong Kong government has said that it would consider giving voting rights to citizens living and working in mainland China, calculated to be about half a million people. The proposal is part of the Greater Bay Area initiative and has triggered questions from the pro-democratic wing about whether such extensions should be implemented worldwide.

Although denying such plans, SAFP noted that such a process of establishing polling stations outside of Macau could be possible so as long as it “[complied] with a proper [manner] and process, such as the transportation of ballot papers, the number of polling stations and the choice of the locations [for the polling stations], human resources [to supervise the process], coordination with the local authority, among other uncertain factors,” reasons that justify the lack of plans for the time being, and would require a prior weighing of all mentioned factors.

The proposal made by the Hong Kong government has turned into a point of concern from several lawmakers in the neighboring region, who identified issues related to the organization of the electoral process, as well as the coordination and supervision of work on polling stations, among others. Members of the Legislative Council stated that all relevant electoral legislation, risks and unforeseen incidents have to be carefully reviewed and considered, while the pro-democrats called for a broader implementation of such a rule worldwide and not just for the mainland territory, giving in this way and to all Hong Kong residents the same voting rights.