After remaining silent and appearing defenseless in the face of pan-blue defiance over the one-step voting procedure, high-ranking officials from the central government finally got tough yesterday, reiterating the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration's stance that it would implement the procedure for the Jan. 12 legislative elections and referendums as decreed by the Central Election Commission (CEC).
President Chen Shui-bian (
Chang also said that using a two-step voting format would be against the law should the pan-blue local governments go ahead with it.
It is about time the central government toughened up and put the wrangling to rest.
The pan-blues insist on a two-step voting procedure, arguing that the one-step voting formula adopted by the CEC would create confusion for voters and result in disputes at polling stations on election day.
But what's so confusing about it?
Under the one-step format, voters will receive two ballots for the legislative elections and two referendum ballots at the same time and then cast them into four different boxes. So, are the pan-blues saying that Taiwanese voters are too stupid to follow instructions as simple as picking up four ballots and casting them into four different boxes?
According to the Election and Recall Law for Civil Servants (
The pan-blues' proposed two-step voting format would infringe upon voters' rights by exposing their preference to vote for the referendums should they have to collect their referendum ballots after voting in the legislative election.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
The central government therefore, rather than engaging in a tiresome spat with the pan-blue local governments, has an even more important task at hand -- assuring the safety of voters when they go to polling stations.
Officials from the central government should issue a strong message to the electorate and promise that those who vote in pan-blue-governed constituencies will not face harassment or arrest when they demand to use the one-step voting procedure.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they