HONG KONG — The people of Hong Kong don’t get to choose their government. But that hasn’t stopped them from finding ways to express what they think about it .

After months of voicing their concerns on the streets, on Sunday they took those to the polling booths. Well beyond any actual protesters who voted in this weekend’s elections, a vast segment of the population cast a protest vote: Many people in the city are now part of a social movement. Hong Kong’s 2019 district council elections may be the most important in the city’s history.

Despite the steady increase in violence and evermore disruptions over many, many weeks , the Hong Kong government has continued to reject the protesters’ main demands — calls for an independent inquiry into police abuse, amnesty for protesters who were arrested and a clear plan for introducing universal suffrage for the legislative and executive elections. On Sunday, voters rebuked the government for its intransigence, widely favoring candidates running against the establishment and who, in some cases, explicitly endorsed the demonstrators’ demands .

The turnout rate reached 71.2 percent, by far the highest ever recorded for any election here . By my count, of the 452 seats in the territory’s 18 district councils, pro-democracy candidates won 391, or 86.5 percent of the total. (Tallies slightly vary, partly because some candidates’ affiliations defy easy categories.) The pro-democracy camp also seems to have secured a majority in 17 of the 18 district councils. (Also by my count, it garnered about 57.4 percent of the popular vote.)