After a one-year postponement, the Legislative Council elections will be held on December 19, 2021.
Under the new system, direct elections were changed from 5 districts to 10 districts, and the long-standing proportional representation system was abolished and replaced by a dual-seat single-vote system. Each district elects two members with one person, one vote, and the regional seats are also reduced from 35 to 20 Seat.
Young voters have always been considered to be more non-organized. The New Territories East constituency before the rezoning had the highest proportion of 18-35-year-old voters in 2016. As a result, 6 of the 9 seats in that year were obtained by non-organizational institutions; after the rezoning, New Territories East It was split into three districts, in which the proportion of young voters in two districts plummeted. In addition, the democrats may not have any candidates for election. It is expected that most of the seats in the parliament will be institutional disputes.
There are about 4.47 million voters in Hong Kong, an increase of nearly 694,000 over 2016, an increase of over 18%.
Under the latest constituency delineation, the southwestern New Territories consisting of Tsuen Wan and Kwai Tsing, the northeastern New Territories covering parts of the North District and Yuen Long, and Kowloon East have the most voters.
In past elections, young voters were considered more inclined to vote for non-establishment lists.
Take the 2016 Legislative Council election as an example. At that time, the New Territories East Constituency consisting of Sha Tin, Tai Po, Sai Kung and the North District had 27% of young voters aged 18-35, the highest in Hong Kong. Of the 9 seats, 6 seats were won by the non-established list.
Under the new electoral system, Hong Kong was rezoned into 10 districts. In the past, New Territories East was divided into 3 districts.
Among them, in the southeastern New Territories (Sai Kung and part of Sha Tin and Ma On Shan) and the northeastern New Territories (Tai Po, Sha Tin and Tai Wai), voters aged 18-35 accounted for the proportion of the total electorate in the district, from 26% to 27% in the past, a drop of more than 3 Percentage points to 23% to 24%.
As for the New Territories North constituency, the proportion of young voters rose slightly to 28.2%.
The New Territories North Constituency includes the North District and the area around Tin Shui Wai in the northwestern part of Yuen Long, and will cover most of the "Northern Metropolis". In the past, the voter turnout rate in the district was generally lower than that of other districts in Hong Kong.
To further compare the actual number of voters, there were 263,000 18-35-year-old voters in New Territories East under the old demarcation in 2016, second only to New Territories West with nearly 280,000 young voters. However, New Territories East actually had 18-35-year-old voters who voted. The number of 157,000 is the highest in Hong Kong. Considering that the lowest threshold for election in New Territories East that year was 35,595 votes, young voters alone were enough to send multiple candidates into the parliament.
However, after the delimitation of electoral districts was changed, the number of young voters in various districts in the New Territories decreased to about 112,000 to 121,000, while it was less than 100,000 in many districts in Hong Kong and Kowloon. In addition, the electoral system has been changed from a Belgian representative system to a dual-seat election system. The single-vote system is expected to reduce the influence of young voters on the election.
In addition, Hong Kong's society has undergone drastic changes in recent years, and the number of newly registered voters has also plummeted in each year. In 2019 and 2020, the net increase in registered voters exceeded 300,000 respectively, while this year's net increase in registered voters was only 5,919.
In addition, as the population ages and the birth rate declines, the number of young voters is declining. In 2021, there will be about 1.025 million voters aged 18-35, a decrease of 44,000 compared with last year, a decrease of 4.1%, and the proportion of total voters will also drop by about 1.03 percentage points from last year. 22.9%.