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A telephone survey was conducted from 29 November to 8 December 2021 by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views about the 2021 Legislative Council election. Of the respondents, 41.3% said they were interested (including those who were somewhat interested or very interested) in the election. 30.8% of the respondents who were registered electors answered that they were going to vote in the coming Legislative Council election.

Major findings are summarised as follows:

The survey found that 41.3% of the respondents said they were interested in the 2021 Legislative Council election to be held on 19 December 2021 (including 31.9% who were somewhat interested and 9.4% who were very interested), and 52.8% were not interested (including 34.6% who were not very interested and 18.2% who were not at all interested).

Of all the respondents, 92.0% were registered electors. 30.8% of those who were registered electors said that they would definitely vote in the coming Legislative Council Geographical Constituencies election on 19 December 2021 and 17.4% of them might vote in the election. Meanwhile, 32.8% said that they would not do so and the other 19.0% answered “don’t know or have not made a decision”. Of the respondents who were going to vote, might vote or had not made a decision, 35.3% said that the most important criterion for their voting choice was the candidate’s “platform”, followed by “relevant political or public service experience” (23.5%) and “party affiliation” (11.4%).

All respondents were asked about the most important function of the Legislative Council. A comparatively larger portion replied “monitoring the work of the government” (39.7%), followed by “enacting laws” (15.8%), “gauging public opinion” (14.9%), and “discussing policies” (9.9%).

Lastly, when asked about their views on the performance of the Legislative Councillors in the most recent year, 43.2% of the respondents indicated dissatisfaction, while 38.1% answered “half-half”. 10.5% said they were satisfied with their performance.

The survey employed a dual-frame sampling design that included both landline and mobile phone numbers. A total of 712 respondents aged 18 or above (landline: 353; mobile: 359) were successfully interviewed, with response rates of 27.5% (landline) and 31.7% (mobile). The sampling error is estimated at plus or minus 3.67 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Weighting of survey data was based on the probability of the respondents being selected via dual-frame sampling design and relevant age-sex distribution of the population published by the Census and Statistics Department.