Have Hong Kong elections lost their lustre? Number of young new voters drops by half, amid 13 per cent fall in registry sign-ups

Official figures from provisional voter registry show only 31,300 new electors, dropping 12.7 per cent from last year, in run-up to revamped district council poll

Analysts say overall drop due to emigration wave following Beijing-imposed national security law and young people’s waning interest in politics after electoral overhauls

Reading Time:3 minutes

Hong Kong’s youth have lost interest in local politics after election reforms, analysts say. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 10:30am, 2 Aug 2023Updated: 7:34pm, 2 Aug 2023

The number of young adults registering to vote in Hong Kong has dropped by half compared with last year, contributing to an overall decrease of nearly 13 per cent in new electors, official figures show.

Analysts attributed the overall drop to an emigration wave prompted by the Beijing-imposed national security law and young people’s waning interest in politics following a revamp of the electoral system.

Opposition parties said they had a slim chance of winning seats in coming district council elections because of the low voter registration among young Hongkongers. The December 10 polls will be the first citywide election since the government overhauled the rules by cutting the number of directly elected district council seats from nearly 95 per cent to 19 per cent.

Figures released on Tuesday on the provisional voter registry showed 31,300 new electors had signed up, a drop of 12.7 per cent compared with last year.

Among them, 5,810 residents aged 18 to 20 formed the largest group of newly registered voters this year. But the figure was a 50.1 per cent drop from last year, and just one-tenth of the 58,794 who registered in 2019, when many young people signed up to vote amid a political crisis sparked by a now-withdrawn extradition bill.

The city had 163,000 residents aged between 18 and 20 as of the end of 2022, according to official data.

The drop in newly registered voters was also seen in the four age groups between 31 and 50. Among them, the 41-45 age group recorded the biggest fall, at 43.7 per cent.