Hong Kong’s new “patriots only” election system – as described in this Semafor article anticipating extremely low turnout despite incentives like discounted airfare for Hongkongers based on the Chinese mainland and stipends to nursing homes to help residents get to polls – sounds really familiar, like it’s an endpoint to the kind of “voter quality”-based situation certain actors here in the United States want to set up to restrict the franchise among the eligible voter base.
“We don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote – but everybody shouldn’t be voting,” said not a Chinese Communist Party official charged with overseeing Hong Kong’s elections but Republican Arizona state Senator John Kavanaugh in March 2021.