Three years before the city elections in Hong Kong, an activist group known as Occupy Central is running an unofficial citywide poll to gauge citizens' opinions of election reform amid the ongoing heated debate over whether Hong Kong residents will get to nominate candidates aside from those Beijing will nominate in the 2017 elections.

While the poll has no legal standing, it is giving Hong Kong residents a chance to express their views on how candidates for the top posts are picked. City administration is expected to submit election reform proposals at the end of the year. Since Hong Kong went back to Chinese rule in 1997, a 1,200-member committee of business and pro-Beijing groups has chosen Hong Kong's leaders despite the city having its own separate economic and political system.

According to Benny Tai, associate professor at the University of Hong Kong and one of Occupy Central's organizers, the online poll opened Friday and had already received 160,000 votes by that afternoon. By Sunday night, almost 700,000 votes had been cast. Voting is being conducted in cooperation with the Public Opinion Program of the University of Hong Kong. Occupy Central had only planned for the unofficial poll to be a weekend project. But the site experienced cyberattacks, so the poll has to be extended until June 29.

Not surprisingly, China says the project is illegal. However, positive results continue to come in. The poll has blown past the initial target of 300,000 votes. Occupy Central continues to encourage Hong Kong residents to vote. The organization has also opened 15 physical polling stations in training centers, universities and churches -- and even had a sing-along Saturday night.