Political activist Jason Chao Teng Hei said Wednesday that on August 24 and 30, volunteers for the controversial “civic referendum” would be in five locations to help residents cast their votes, but no voting tables would be set up and residents would actually vote on line so that it could not be regarded as as assembly in a public place.
Chao is a key member of the Open Macau Society which, along with Macau COnscience and Macau Youth Dynamics, is organising the “referendum” that the government regards as “illegal and invalid”.
Chao said the five locations are: the intersection of Avenida de Horta e Costa and Rua de Francisco Xavier Pereira where he spoke to reporters, Rua do Campo, the Rua de S. Lourenço near the Salesian Institute, Rua Um de Bairro Iao Hon in the northern district, and a pedestrian area beside the Flower City Garden in Taipa.
He also said that the voting process would be completely paperless, as two to three volunteers would be present in each of the five locations, where residents who want to cast their ballots would need to show their IDs to the volunteers for verification. Voters will be handed a tablet computer on which they would answer the two questions in the “civic referendum” – whether or not they want universal suffrage in 2019 and if they have confidence in the chief executive election’s sole candidate, Fernando Chui Sai On.
Any Macau Id card holder aged at least 16 can vote in the”referendum”
The activist said that organisers will be able to reveal the results for voter turnout and the way voters answer the question on universal suffrage, shortly after voting ends on August 31 at noon time.
He said that the result for the question on Chui’s confidence will be announced on September 2.
Chao said he hoped that the voter turnout would exceed 5,000 because that is the number of voters who chose the 400 Chief Executive Election Commission members on June 29.
“If our turnout exceeds 5,000, it means that the ‘civic referendum’ will be more representative than the real one [chief executive election] by the 400-member committee ” said Chao.(macaunews/macaupost)
