Record number of Hong Kong voters head to the polls in tense vote

 Record numbers of Hong Kong residents headed to the polls on Sunday to vote in district council elections, an event widely taken as a referendum on months of protest that have roiled the former British colony since early June.

Long lines started forming at polling stations early Sunday morning as riot police were stationed nearby in case of disturbances, The Deutsch Press Agency (dpa) reported.

More than 1,100 candidates are competing for 452 seats in the city's district councils, the lowest rung of the government.

By 10:30 am, over 720,000 people had cast their ballots. Voter turnout was more than double the rate of the last two district council elections.

Residents told dpa that the vote held much more significance for them than in years past.

It remained unclear how the polls will be impacted by revelations this weekend in Australian media that covert Chinese agents have deliberately interfered in Hong Kong politics.

Groups, however, have used months of protest and anger at Hong Kong’s government to register scores of new voters and promote their agenda. 

Should their candidates do well on Sunday, this would indicate that Hong Kongers remain firmly behind the protest movement, which has seen participation from hundreds of thousands of residents.

Protests began in Hong Kong over legislation that would have allowed residents to be extradited to mainland China, but they have since come to represent a mass movement against the local and Beijing governments and police violence.

Many protesters expressed concern that the draft extradition bill was a sign that Hong Kong was losing its promised autonomy to China, which the former British colony was promised for 50 years when it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China under the "one country, two systems" arrangement until 2047.