The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Tuesday revealed dates for coming key polls in the city, starting on September 19 with the contest for seats on the Election Committee.

The election of the Legislative Council (LegCo) of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), which had earlier been postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will take place on December 19, HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam said at a press briefing, adding that the chief executive election is scheduled on March 27, next year.

The HKSAR started local legislation after China's top legislature last month adopted a package of legislative changes to improve city's electoral system.

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According to Lam, the Executive Council earlier on Tuesday has approved the local electoral amendment bill. The bill called Improving Electoral System (Consolidated Amendments) Bill 2021 will be introduced into LegCo on Wednesday for first reading and second reading.

She specified some of the changes. As the LegCo's five geographical constituencies will be increased to 10, Hong Kong Island will have two constituencies, Kowloon will own three, and New Territories will occupy five. Each constituency shall have two seats in the LegCo with two candidates who got the most voting, into office.

"Under Beijing's plan, the candidate eligibility review committee should be set up according to local laws. The committee members have to be officials who were nominated by the chief executive and appointed by the central government. There will be one chairman, with two to four committee members," Lam explained the composition of the committee.

She also mentioned social representatives will be added to the new candidate eligibility review committee.

The committee originally expected to include only a small group of principal officials. The chief executive said she has taken heed of concerns about such arrangement.

"In the last two weeks, whenever we talk about this eligibility review committee, there was a school of thought… that.. 'ok, it's all officials, how could you convince us that you will be very fair?'" Lam said.

"So I have accepted the view put to us so later on, we will introduce a committee-stage amendment to this bill to allow for the chief executive to appoint a number of community leaders to become members of the eligibility review committee."

However, she did not give further information on exactly who will sit on the committee.

Amendments are also made to the Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance.

"During an election any person openly inviting people not to vote or cast a blank or invalid vote, this will be illegal conduct," Lam said, adding that those who obstructed voters from casting their ballots would also be committing an offense.

Implementing a host of measures to improve the electoral arrangements for public elections is also a key amendments area, according to Lam. She said the amendments include setting up a special queue for electors in need in public elections and implementing an electronic poll register, etc.