Polls close after Hong Kong's record-breaking elections

(Image credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

There may soon be a better sense of how much progress the protest movement in Hong Kong has made.

Polls closed Sunday in Hong Kong after a district council election day that turned into the city's largest ever. Since the early hours of the morning, millions of people flocked to polling stations. The number of voters had reportedly shot past the final total of voters from the 2015 elections by lunchtime, and The South China Morning Post reports that there was 69 percent turnout, a far higher mark than four years ago.

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The protest groups had called upon voters to refrain from disrupting the elections and there has reportedly been no sign of trouble, providing the metropolis with a moment of calm, though police were reportedly maintaining watch over polling throughout the day. Read more at BBC and The South China Morning Post.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.