THE ONGOING CONFLICT over whether a one-step or a two-step procedure should be adopted in next week's combined referendum and legislative elections intensified recently when the Cabinet issued stern warnings, saying that election officials who do not follow the one-step procedure will be dismissed and replaced by others.
If local election committee members are subjected to such harsh treatment by the government, then what would happen to local election staff who have no intent to break the law?
Moreover, local election staff administer electoral affairs in accordance with resolutions passed by local election commissions. This means that the Cabinet should pursue the election commissioners who decide to adopt the two-step voting format, rather than the local election staff, who just follow their orders.
Furthermore, the electoral staff includes not only civil servants, but people who are not civil servants as well. Not all the regulations that the Cabinet is relying on are applicable to the latter.
The fact that the run-up to the elections is mired in bickering over voting procedures is unprecedented in Taiwanese election history. According to minutes from the Central Election Commission's (CEC) 371st meeting, considering the original CEC resolution it would be more correct to say that the dispute is over "two-step ballot distribution and one-step voting" or "two-step ballot distribution and two-step voting."
In other words, the original resolution was written with the idea that both parties agree that ballot distribution should be a two-step procedure. The quarrel was over whether the actual voting procedure should proceed in one step or two.
But the quarrel has now expanded to include the issue of ballot distribution.
Based on the CEC meeting minutes, the conflict is now about whether legislative and referendum ballots should be picked up separately and cast separately or be both picked up and cast together.
Either way, the fact is that if the CEC had passed an unambiguous administrative regulation in the first place, local election commissions might not have been left with so much room for interpretation.
Unfortunately, CEC members were "political representatives" and their selection was basedesolely on their politics.
There was no requirement for members to have much expertise or practical experience. As a result, they overlooked what might seem to be an insignificant detail -- the design of the voting procedure.
Taiwan has held elections for many years, which begs the question: Shouldn't the voting procedure have been legally formalized a long time ago?
The ongoing conflict clearly indicates that the CEC has failed to act as an independent body in resolving the dispute. Given the stand-off between the pan-green and pan-blue camps, the issue of establishing an expert and neutral CEC is something the next legislature should deal with urgently, lest the same problems plague the presidential election in March.
The Organic Statute of the CEC (中央選舉委員會組織規程) passed in 2000 does not offer any concrete regulations regarding the qualifications of commission members. Instead, it places particular importance on the issue of party politics, stipulating that the commission shall have independent commissioners and that no more than two-fifths of its members may have the same party affiliation.
But an independent stance could also be considered a political position. It is inevitable that election commission members will have their own political position. The US Independent Regulatory Commissions are made up of members recommended by the Democratic and Republican parties, but still manage to operate well. The key issue is for commission members to be equipped with expertise and experience.
Future election commission members should be required to have at least 10 years of experience in electoral affairs. How could a commission member lacking any experience in electoral affairs be able to make decisions regarding convenient, effective, fair and just decisions?
The voting format controversy has removed the focus from the new single-district, double ballot election system and thus confused voters. In addition, parties other than the Democratic Progressive Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- which are already in a difficult situation -- have more or less disappeared from the election campaign.
Perhaps politicians only care about high voter turnout, not realizing the stain this regrettable situation will leave on Taiwan's electoral history.
Ted Chiou is a professor at the Department of Public Administration and Policy at National Taipei University.
Translated by Ted Yang
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