The by-elections to fill the 15 seats in the Election Committee out of 40 candidates were completed Sunday, according to a government press release Monday.

Justice Woo Kwok-hing, chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission, said more than 7,000 ballot papers from some 47,000 registered voters were collected from the 39 polling stations.

With the by-election completes, a 800-member Election Committee, which will elect a new Chief Executive on July 10, is formally established.

According to the Annex I of the Basic Law, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong shall be elected by an 800-member Election Committee.

Before the by-election, the Election Committee has a total vacancies of 33 in 17 subsectors. Polls are not required in seven out of 16 subsectors because their by-elections are not contested.

Six more vacancies in the Religious Subsector of the Election Committee have been filled by supplementary nominations.

On Sunday, 40 candidates ran for the 15 seats in the nine contested subsectors -- Textiles and Garment, Accountancy, Architectural, Surveying and Planning, Chinese Medicine, Engineering, Higher Education, Legal, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Hong Kong and Kowloon District Councils.