As commited, the IT Voice team shall coordinate to nominate a candidate other than the incumbent Mr. Donald Tsang. We all nominated Alan Leong.

We have created a group blog for members of the IT voice. Please read www.itvoice.hk …

This space, itvoice.lento.hk, will continue to exist at least until the new CE is elected.

Surveyed some IT voters. Here sampled two typical answers from voters about the need, or otherwise, of “democracy” in HK.

1. HK is under the rule of China. We need a Chief Executive who is able to bridge between China and HK, win the trust of the Chinese government, strategically position HK to integrate into our motherland’s economic system. Remember China has the highest growth among the world’s big nations. This is the only way to go for a better HK. The Chinese government does not trust candidates other than those they picked, so it is not to the benefit of HK to go for a contested CE election.

2. The current system is not democracy. It is only intended for control of the political environment of HK. But there are severe externalities due to this constitutional setup: There are only 800 Election Committee members, with a large portion of them uncontested or “coordinated” or only with very few candidates. Voters are also limited to those 200K out of the 7M. The consequence is this setup can be manipulated, that creates incentives for use of the power of this committee to lobby for formulation of  government policies, regulations and licensing on various aspects affecting HK: land, labour policy, electricity supply, education, transport, etc … all aspects affecting all HK people. These “externalities” are things the Chinese government do not want, naturally.

Any answer to these? You may leave a comment …

Although the election is over, I would love to share with you some interesting observations about the election.

1. As far as I know, there is none candidate stating clearly that he/she will nominate Donald Tsang as a candidate for the next Chief Executive in their platform. At least not for the IT sector.

2. But there are many candidates declaring they will support Alan Leong, or, as there might be other prospective candidates running for the CE Election, declaring that they will not support Donald Tsang clearly.

3. The IT Voice team stated at the beginning of the campaign that they will not nominate Donald Tsang. Up till this moment, nobody has given any pressure to us for this explicit pledge. The “pressure” theory may be a bit exaggerated.

The fact is, there are still a big support to Donald Tsang from the public, so why, why candidates who support Tsang did not pledge to their voters? This is the catch.

Remember, the final voting for the CE is anonymous, but the nomination is named. So, whether a member voted for Donald Tsang at the final stage is unknown, but the nomination is known.

Any candidate who clearly state their stance is worthy of respect, like one candidate of the financial services sector, he announced, though after elected, that he will nominate and vote for Donald Tsang. For those not, well, I think they are trying to lure voters, and later use their nomination as “chips” to exchange for interests. Imagine this scenario: If Alan Leong got 99 nominations, then his/her nomination will become crucial. This might be the sole reason why the majority of candidates do not pledge to their voters about the only role of the Election Committee. Are they running for their own interest? Because if they pledged, there leaves no room for negotiation.

This system is, rotten.

Before I fall to bed after a 28-hour episode, I am so excited to share with you that IT voters empowered us to fight for a Contested CE Election, true democracy and universal suffrage by casting their vote for us. Their voice is so loud that they put all of us to the upper half of the vote count list, though we are not as famous as some other candidates. Below is the list of the elected.

20 莫乃光 1228 
31 譚偉豪 1071 
6 王維基 981 
30 宋德嘉 971 IT Voice
18 梁兆昌 964 IT Voice
4 李澤楷 960 
3 方保僑 928 IT Voice
11 賴錫璋 927 
33 葉旭暉 913 IT Voice
10 鍾宏安 910 IT Voice
35 楊和生 874 IT Voice
13 BRADBEER ROBIN SARAH 851 
34 麥鄧碧儀 804 
12 李惠光 803 
36 龍家麟 757 
28 劉嘉敏 754 
26 葛珮帆 753
5 簡文樂 741
9 鄧淑明 714
8 容啓泰 659

Total voter turnout: 2306, 46.08%
Average number of selected candidates by each voter: 11.25

We shall do what we commited and empowered by our voters. This is only the prelude of the real work ahead … :)

We are very excited to learn that the turnout rate was about 45%, the highest ever for the IT sub-sector. No matter you vote for us or not, thank you for voicing out your preference!!

We are right now at the poll counting center at HKCEC, and are very glad to learn that about half of the 39 candidates of the ITEC turn out at here, although some briefly.

Shall continue reporting!!

投票日 : 今天!! 

我是選委會資訊科技界別 33 號 候選人 葉旭暉。我相信民主、自由、平等。我承諾提名一位 “第ニ候選人” 與曾蔭權先生競爭特首一職, 及承諾在此網誌向選民報告選委會的所有工作。請你投我一票!!

• 投票時間及方法
• 選委會是什麼?
• 為什麼要投票?
• 參選為私利?
• 支持者寄語
• 關於我
• 與我聯繫

我支持有競爭的特首選舉, 反對實施銷售稅, 倡議健康及開放的市埸競爭, 提高資訊科技從業員的專業及社會地位。

如你認同我的理念, 請你於十二月十日星期日投我及 「IT 呼聲」 各成員一票。
不認同我, 也請你去參與投票!!

Two mornings at Quarry Bay MTR …

Some of them didn’t smile … why? The polluted air by transport exhausts …

Democracy needs participation. We made our commitment. We did our part. We are just somebody in the IT industry hoping to represent a portion of the view, no matter how big that portion is. Approve us or not, please express your view by casting your vote on this Sunday!!

It was a pleasurable experience to visit 6 IT companies at Cyberport today. Met some old folks who were on business contact with me before and never had the chance to discuss about this political issue that well affects the long term well being of HK and our next generations. This is a chance to let us understand more about each other. By explaining our believe and our sole intent of our commitment to nominate a secondary candidate, I felt like we were miles closer to each other!!

Life has a limited time span. Honesty is the quality that we are looking for, and is the foundation of ‘ethics’ that one of the candidates bragged about recently. Lets just be honest to ourselves and to our next generation.

Below are my answers to questions from a voter. I hope you understand how excited I am getting responses from voters … Please do write to us, or call me at 94631261!!

Dear 選民 ,

Thank you for writing to me !!

> 你贊成曾蔭權繼續做特首嗎?

Some might think Donald is good. Some might think Alan Leong is good. It is not about I support Donald Tsang as CE or not. It is about the system, that by the current setting it suppresses competitors at the nomination phase. We commit to try break that by nominating, together, a secondary candidate to compete with Donald Tsang. That candidate will very likely be Alan Leong.

The cornerstone of democracy is the right to choose, and the right to have choices in the first place.

> 你支持曾蔭權繼續做特首嗎?

I think Donald and Alan are both good candidates. Who shall I vote for depends on their platform and their commitment. But the first thing is, I commit to nominate a second candidate. If things won’t change, I will nominate Alan Leong. In any case, I will NOT nominate Donald Tsang, not because I think Donald is not a suitable person, but just an attempt to make it a Contested CE Election.

> 你支持梁家傑選特首嗎?你會提名他嗎?

Yes I support Alan Leong to run for the election. And I support any other capable candidate to run too.

> 你贊成2012有雙普選嗎?

YES I DO !!

Lento Yip
Candidate 33

To make the CE Election a contested one, please vote on me and all candidates of IT Voice!! 3, 10, 18, 30, 33, 35.

Voters of sub-sector elections must have received tons of pamphlets that stuffed up their post boxes … If we assume each sub-sector has on average 16 candidates and formed two ‘tickets’, each voter would have received about 16+2 = 18 pamphlets by post. 0.2 million voters implied 3.6 million pieces of paper. We killed about a thousand trees and consumed about 5-million dollors worth of postage. Postage is public money.

The culprit is the election rules. Each candidate is allowed to mail a piece of pamphlet free of postage to each of his/her sector’s voters. So if you were the candidate, you naturally would make your own pamphlet, otherwise you will be disadvantaged. And each pamphlet costs about HK$1, and that counts to the costs of the election. You might argue this helps boost the design and printing business though …

And the big issue is this sudden arrival of papers is more an annoyance to the voters. Classic game theory says this is a typical poor game design - Most people lose at the Nash Equilibrium.

The solution? I think IT could be used here.

I perceive the announcement of halting the promotion of GST as two things. One, GST is indeed a bad thing overall. Two, this administration actually had not carefully thought about the effect of GST before stirring up the public debate. Although I myself strongly object to GST, I understand and very well accept there are supporters to GST, and am not really very happy about this abrupt halt because it only means:

• This government does not stick to what it believes right, or
• This government may not even care what is truly right for the public,
• Whether the government believes GST is an overall good thing to HK in the first place became doubtful after this sudden act
• It became even more doubtful at this moment in time.

Why? Because this government is not accountable to the people of Hong Kong, because we have no means to change this government even if we think it is not capable. And, this is the mission impossible that we are on right now … please give us just a little support, and vote on 10th December 2006!!

Your vote gives Hong Kong choices

A 30-second message ..

I am Lento Yip, Candidate 33 of the Election Committee ITFC Sub-Sector Election. If elected, I commit to:-

• Nominating a ‘secondary’ candidate to compete with the incumbent for the Chief Executive position of Hong Kong
• Reporting to voters and the public of all my work and activities with the Election Committee on this blog

If you think I am doing the right thing, please vote for me and 6 members of IT Voice on coming Sunday, 10th December 2006!! If not, please still exercise your precious right to vote!!

If you want to read more about me or contact me, please visit my blog at http://itvoice.lento.hk/

If you do not want to receive further e-mails from me, please send a blank mail to [email protected]

33 號 葉旭暉: 我的承諾 – 提名第二候選人 – 在網誌報告工作  

花你三十秒的信息:

我是選委會資訊科技界候選人 33號 葉旭暉。若我當選, 我承諾:

• 提名一位候選人與現任特首競爭行政長官一職
• 在我的網誌 http://itvoice.lento.hk/ 上披露選委會的工作

若你認同我的做法, 請於 十二月十日(本星期日) 投我及與我相同理念的「IT 呼聲」成員一票。不認同我, 也請你去行使你的投票權!!

如有興趣看我的政綱及個人資料或聯絡我, 請到我的網誌 http://itvoice.lento.hk/

如不想再收到我的選舉廣告請電郵至 [email protected]

Today, we tried to meet voters at Ngau Tau Kok MTR, hoping to give our flyers to those who work at Millenium City. I found lots of fun in that 1.5 hours. The “good morning” greet line was most welcomed. Most of them smiled, some of them cool, and some of them disgruntled. The proportion was about 5:3:2 respectively. The exciting thing was most of the elderly people, though not likely voters, were VERY keen to take our flyer … may be they have lots of free time, or they are the learned population knowing the importance of democracy and freedom to their children? As the clock approached 9AM, the pace of people just accelerated, walked faster and faster, as anticipated.   The result is we dispatched 600 flyers, a bit of achievement !!

We have another road show tommorrow morning. I want to join badly, but have to take care of my full time job …

I am sorting the e-mail addresses from the voters list, and will send several hundred e-mails shortly …

Being an anti-spam person, I am very cautious about voters seeing my mail as spam … The message has to be short, reader oriented, in text only, no personal bluffing, and readers can complete reading it within 30 seconds. And I need to develope an opt-out mechanism for them to choose not to receive further mails from me. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I ‘plan’ to send several hundred identical copies of e-mails. I hope voters, also being Internet users, bear with me for this act …

We are trying to visit I.T. companies and professional bodies, like Microsoft, HP, IBM, CSL, PCCW etc. The objective is, of course, contact the voters. The process became a bit of a administrative headache which is understandable, because the incentive to the voters are not very big. I surveyed some voters and many of them appeared not very concerned about this Election Committee thing, the main reason is they think their votes would not change the outcome of election of the CE anyway.

They may be right. Are we fools fighting against all odds? May be. But as Francis said, 豈能盡如人意，但求無愧於心。

Please go vote on 10th December 2006!!

Voters like you should have received a lot of flyers from the candidates. You might well see the difficulty of making the flyers/pamphlets when it needs coordination among a group of people. All 6 of us have our full time jobs … but we built our web sites, produced our group flyers, held several press conferences, met Alan Leong, done a number of road shows at Wan Chai and Quarry Bay, produced our hundred street banners, produced our six personal flyers, done a lot of translations, sorting the voters list and plan how to contact them to ask them vote, trying to visit the IT companies etc… all within a month time. I have to say a million thanks to the team, and I have to confess I am the one with least contribution. Thank you SC Francis Chester Edmon Sang Esther and Crystal.

We met Alan Leong yesterday. The meeting was a chance for us to exchange ideas and understand each other. We briefed Alan the major issues of IT and telecom in HK, and he explained to us his vision and reasons of running for the CE election. I think we are common in the way we see democracy, liberty, the free market and the importance of IT being the fabric of every aspects of a knowledge economy.

We received an e-mail from the popular English newspaper in Hong Kong, asking us to pick one of the options below if we are elected as a member of the Election Committee. The options listed are,

1. Alan Leong
2. Donald Tsang
3. Not yet decided

Guess they are trying to survey all the candidates to estimate the number of nominations Alan Leong could get.

The thing is, we advocate a “Contested CE Election”. Given the current political environment and the alleged ‘political pressure’, the nomination phase will be biased towards single candidacy, if you know a bit of game theory. Our intention is to make the CE election a contested one, so we will nominate a ’secondary candidate’ to run for the election. We are not saying that Alan Leong is better than Donald Tsang if we nominate Alan Leong.

Voltaire said, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”. Although I have no plan to die for a Contested CE Election, I would love to twist this quote a little bit and put it as,

I don’t think Alan Leong is good enough, but I will try my best to make him an option for those who think he is. At the end of the day, the better one will win.

My answer to the survey is “To foster competition, we will nominate one candidate to compete with Donald Tsang.”.

This election thing is tedious but alleged having a reason.

The Registration and Electoral Office requires that we provide copies of all promotion materials that are election related. If the material is a web site, we need to provide a ‘copy’ of the web site on CD. The catch is, “any updates to the site must be reported”.

Of course there are legitimate reasons to request this. The thing is, there are technical difficulties,

1. Web site is normally not simple HTML. This blog is a database plus a set of applications. Even if I copy them to a CD, they cannot reproduce the web site on their desktop PC.

2. Blog is a dynamic thing. It is updated frequently, by the author and also by its readers. How practically could I report for every update ?

I get around the first by using a piece of free software called HTTrack to copy the whole thing to the CD, but it still does not mimic all the stuffs entirely. For the second point, I learned that updates could be reported within 7-days. That means I need to make a copy of this web site to a CD, fill in a form, and send them to the Registration and Electoral Office every 7-day.

Anyway …