On September 12, the election of the 7th Legislative Council of the Macao Special Administrative Region entered the polling day.
Voting will start at 9 a.m. and end at 9 p.m.
The preliminary voting results are expected to be announced in the early hours of the 13th.
The Legislative Council of the Macao Special Administrative Region is the legislature of the Macao Special Administrative Region. It is composed of permanent residents of the Macao Special Administrative Region, and the majority of its members are elected.
The 7th Legislative Council consists of 33 members with a term of 4 years, of which 14 are directly elected, 12 are indirectly elected, and 7 are appointed by the Chief Executive.
In order to ensure the orderly implementation of elections, the Electoral Management Commission has formulated guidelines for epidemic prevention and other work, strengthened personnel training and simulation exercises, and optimized electronic systems such as site settings and vote counting.
Voters can vote at 37 polling stations in different regions of Macau.
The EAC has also set up 3 mobile polling stations to ensure that voters who receive quarantine medical observation at designated locations can exercise their right to vote.
Gao Bingkun, a member of the EAC of the Seventh Legislative Council of the Macao Special Administrative Region and Director of the Administrative and Public Service Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government, stated that voters only need to show their health code, wipe disinfectant and wear a mask to enter the polling station and follow the procedures to queue up to vote.
In order to implement the requirement of maintaining a distance of 1 meter in the hygiene guidelines, the polling stations have expanded their waiting areas and announced the number of real-time queues through multiple channels.
This election also improved the voting system, final counting, and headquarters communication tools to speed up vote counting.
It is worth mentioning that the EAC of the Seventh Legislative Council, in accordance with the Basic Law of Macau and the "Law on the Election of the Legislative Council of the Macao Special Administrative Region", will review the eligibility of candidates in all categories to ensure entry into the Special Administrative Region. The person in the governance structure must be a patriot who loves Australia.
The Macau society expects that through elections, steadfast patriots with strong governance capabilities will be selected, and the practice of "One Country, Two Systems" with Macau characteristics will continue to be implemented stably and far-reaching.
(Headquarters reporter Xiao Zhongren)