The nomination period for the 2020 Legislative Council General Election will start Saturday and run until July 31, Hong Kong's election watchdog said on Friday.

The Election Affairs Commission said 35 council members from geographical constituencies and 35 from functional constituencies will be returned in the general election to be held on September 6

In a press release, the Election Affairs Commission said thirty-five council members from geographical constituencies and 35 from functional constituencies will be returned in the general election to be held on Sept 6.

"Nominees are advised to submit their nominations as early as possible to allow time to correct mistakes, if any, in the nomination forms before the deadline,” a spokesman for the Registration and Electoral Office (REO) was quoted as saying in the press release.

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“In addition, in view of public health considerations, prevention and crowd management measures will be implemented at the offices of the Returning Officers,” he added.

To run for a seat in a geographical constituency or a functional constituency, a nominee must be a registered geographical constituency elector aged 21 or above and have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for the three years immediately preceding the nomination, the spokesman said.

He said the nominee must also be a Chinese citizen who is a Hong Kong permanent resident with no right of abode in a foreign country.

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However, the candidature in 12 functional constituencies is open to Hong Kong permanent residents who are not Chinese nationals or who have the right of abode in a foreign country, according to the press release.

These constituencies include legal; accountancy; engineering; architectural, surveying, planning and landscape; real estate and construction; tourism; commercial (first); industrial (first); finance; financial services; import and export; and insurance, it added.

More than 4.46 million electors have been registered in the geographical constituencies for the 2020 election, the Registration and Electoral Office said.

A total of 4,466,944 electors are carried in the newly issued final register for the five geographical constituencies: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon West, Kowloon East, New Territories West and New Territories East.

The number is nearly 688,000 higher than that in the 2016 LegCo election.

According to the office, the final register for the District Council (second) functional constituency contains more than 4.19 million electors. For the functional constituencies other than the District Council (second) functional constituency, 250,452 electors are listed in the final register.

With Xinhua inputs