Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by AnimalMuppet 2504 days ago
Without the protests, when and how are the residents of Hong Kong going to be allowed to vote for democracy?
1 comments

Have they tried doing an improvised vote? Even just among protesters, too see what the level of support for certain positions is? I genuinely don't know.

Regarding being allowed to vote, the Hong Kong government is certainly taking a hardliner stance, but I'm not sure whether they could justify it to themselves to criminalize stuffing a piece of paper into a ballot box.

Are you aware that people officially voted for pro independence representatives and those representatives were dismissed for being insulting to China?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/14/hong-kong-pro-...

No, I wasn't, thanks for the information. FWIW, I wasn't suggesting an election within the existing system, where formal requirements like the oath-taking ceremony matter, but rather an improvised referendum with no such restrictions. On a purely legal basis, the government would be free to ignore the results, but in practice that might not be so easy. Since voting requires less effort than participating in a protest march, turnout is more likely to reach a majority of the population.