According to the Central Election Commission, the opinion poll may be released today at the earliest, which will determine if people are in favor of merging the presidential and legislative elections.

The Minister of the Interior, Chiang Yi-hua, stressed that if the two elections are combined, then the implementation of absentee ballot may be postponed to make the voting procedure less complicated.

Minister of the Interior Chiang Yi-hua and Minister of the Central Election Commission Chang Po-ya were both in an interpellation session in the legislature.

When asked questions about the legitimacy of merging the presidential and legislative elections, both Chiang and Chang believe a law amendment is not necessary and a result of a public poll on the issue would be announced on as fast as this Friday.

Chiang says if the two elections are merged, his ministry will suspend the plan of amending the law for absentee voting.

Chiang stresses that the cases of presidential elections are simpler in Taiwan since there are only few candidates.

If the presidential election is combined with the legislative election, this would make the whole issue much more complicated because of the various electoral districts.

So the execution would be made a lot more difficult if the elections are combined and the absentee voting is carried out at the same time.

So far, the amendment draft of the absentee voting has completed its review process in the Executive Yuan, everything will depend on the Central Election Commission's final decision in the end of April.