從理性選擇理論評澳門第七屆立法會直選結果

The Macao SAR has just completed the election of the 7th Legislative Assembly 2021 in an orderly manner, but both the low turnout rate and the increasing number of blank and invalid votes drew the public’s attention. In addition, five groups of non-establishment candidates were disqualified just before the election, so that the representativeness and supervisory power of the newly formed Macao Legislative Assembly have also been doubted by the public. This study mainly adopts the rational choice theory to analyse the results of the direct election. First, the low turnout rate in the direct elections is affected by the expected costs (the risk and inconvenience triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic) and expected benefits (the reduced choice of candidates and the public satisfaction on the Government’s performance on COVID-19 prevention) of eligible voters. According to the results of the Hong Kong District Council Election 2019, the high turnout rates may not lead to better governance. The high proportion of blank votes and invalid votes may be caused by the pendulum effects, or the high proportion is triggered by some “manipulated” issues, like rumors and fake news. By comparing the performance in the number of enquiries by directly elected members of the 6th Legislative Assembly, there is no significant difference between DQ and pro-establishment directly elected members. All in all, this study concludes that the results of the 7th Macao Legislative Assembly Election, which can be verified by Rational Choice Theory, argues the election was a fair and representative one.