The Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Bureau has been following up on the loss of a Register of Electors for the 2016 Legislative Council General Election, including reviewing information of the voters affected.

Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip made the statement after attending a meeting at the Legislative Council today.

Mr Nip said the review showed about 400 of the 8,000 voters whose information was lost with the register, have changed their registered addresses since 2016.

He added the proportion of the change of address was at a normal level.

Mr Nip said while Police and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data have launched investigations, the Electoral Affairs Commission will also conduct a review into the incident.

“We need to conduct a thorough investigation to find out what actually has happened, whether it is a systemic issue or there are insufficient guidelines or protocols, or whether there are problems in implementing the relevant guidelines and protocols.

“We need to find out the problems, the cause of the issues and who should be accountable or responsible.”

He said the bureau will deal with the matter strictly in accordance with the existing disciplinary mechanism if a deliberate cover-up or human error was involved.