The Government hopes to raise out a question whether there is scope to shorten the polling hours for the public to discuss, Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip said.
He made the statement after the Government invited people to send in their views on various electoral arrangements today.
Mr Nip told reporters that the present polling lasts for 15 hours, from 7.30am to 10.30pm, is really long.
“We are proposing whether there is scope for us to shorten the polling hours a bit so that we could start the counting and finish all the counting and announce the results early to facilitate the conduct of the polling.”
On the regulation on election surveys, Mr Nip said the Government is seeking views on whether to introduce regulation to prevent the announcement or disclosure of the election survey results before the poll ends.
“We know that there are diverse opinions. We would like to listen to public's views and then we'll consult the Legislative Council again before we consider how to take the matters forward.”
The Government only has specific proposals on the regulation of electoral advertisement through Internet, which proposes introducing an exemption to protect web surfers who simply expressing their opinions on the Internet from criminal liability.
