Hong Kong residents asked to photograph voting for pro-Beijing candidates

Thanks to Moses Ma (managing partner of Next Generation Ventures and developer of the Cameraphone Summit) who alerted me to an article in The New York Times (you have to pay to read it) reporting that mainland Chinese residents are being asked to tell their relatives in Hong Kong to vote for pro-Beijing candidates and use a camera phone to photograph their ballots as proof.

The article's main focus is the arrest of Alex Ho, a Hong Kong resident who is running for the legislature. While visiting mainland Chinca he was charged with soliciting a prostitute, signed a confession and sentenced without a trial to six months in detention.

The Times reports tensions between Hong Kong and Beijing are rising and three "pro-democracy" radio talk show hosts have quit after complaining of receiving threats (not specified in the article). One has just begun running in the Legislative Council elections.

Camera phone connection

The camera phone angle appears near the bottom of the article, written from Hong Kong. "Talk show callers have complained that their mainland relatives had been told by security personnel to ask Hong Kong family members to vote for pro-Beijing candidates, and to provide proof by photographing their ballots using cellphone cameras.

"Election officials here have reminded the public that it is illegal to take photos in a polling place."

This certainly isn't the first time camera phones and politics have been tied together. I wrote about the South Korea National Election Commission asking residents to inform the agency of abuses of the voting process, including sending camera phone photos and SMS messages to the Commission to document possible wrongdoings.