The Legislative Election in Taiwan, Plus the Referendums

There are two issues for today's election. One is to select congressional members, who would do the job in the Legislature Yuan for the next three years. The other is to cast votes for two referendum questions.

I walked to the poll station in my district at 11:30 in the morning. Quite a few voters had turned up and formed a line.

The staff would first checked your identification before allowing you in. Once inside, there had two desks. One the first one, you would get your two ballots, one for selecting a legislator, one for selecting a preferred political party. Then you would proceed to the second desk, where you would get another two ballots for the referendums.

For the two referendum questions, one is sponsored by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on retrieving the KMT's "stolen assets", and another by the KMT on giving the legislature the power to investigate the president, the vice president, their family members and subordinates for corruption.

KMT has since beat a retreat from their own sponsored referendum, and placed major ads on newspapers and TV broadcast, asking voters to boycott all referendums.

When I stood in the line, I immediately realized that I knew what other voters were voting for whom. It was quite obvious. If a voter proceeded to the second desk and took the ballots for referendum, you could presume that he/she was for the DPP camp (Pan Green); if a voter refused to take the ballots on the second desk, whoops, the answer was quite obvious.

This is probably not too good if I want to keep my choice in secret.

A row broke out while I was there. An old woman, after casting her votes, came back in and argued that she didn't realize that she had to get the referendum ballots on the second desk.

The staff replied that it was too late. Once you walked out of the poll station, you can't come back in.

"But you didn't tell me that I should go to the second desk, " said the old woman at her late 50's.

"Of course not," said one of the staff, "we are not allowed to advice you on that. It's all your choice."

I thought this is a bit misleading. But the referendum itself had been the focus of the controversy in this year's election. I guess that's why the staff wouldn't want to encourage voters to get the ballots.




All the candidates representing my district were printed in a broadsheet, which was sent to me a couple of weeks ago.

The white notice is for Legislature while the pink one for referendum.

The arrow showed the way to the poll station.

Along the way, candidates' advertising could be seen for the last efforts.

You can't take pictures inside or anywhere outside within 30 meters. I took this in secret. Phones aren't allowed as well.