Election commission flip-flops, again

In another dramatic policy flip-flop, the Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday decided to revoke its earlier resolution and switch to a plan of separating presidential and referendum voting at polling stations.

The commission had originally adopted the plan proposed by the Cabinet in which voters would pick up the presidential and referendum ballots at the same time. Local election commissions, including those of Taipei City, Miaoli County and Yunlin County, however, argued that the approach might cause more trouble and slow down the counting process.

CEC Chairman Huang Shih-cheng (黃石城) said after a five-hour closed-door meeting that the commission's change of heart had a lot to do with the concerns voiced by local election commissions, media and lawmakers.

"Local election commissions are, after all, working on the front-line and their opinions mean a lot to us," he said.

Commission members Lai Hao-min (賴浩敏) and Chi Jeen-nan (紀鎮南), who opposed adopting the Cabinet's proposal during the last CEC meeting, said the new approach was the simplest and fastest and would result in fewer mistakes being made during the voting process.

Commission members, however, agreed yesterday to maintain their original resolution that ballots for the presidential election erroneously cast into the referendum ballot boxes be counted as valid.

In addition, ballots for the presidential election will be counted first, although local election commissions with ample space and sufficient manpower will be allowed to tally the presidential and referendum ballots at the same time.

Earlier yesterday, Huang said it would be a "better idea" to separate the presidential and referendum polls, saying this approach would be "bound to make less mistakes."

"Actually, our original plan was to separate the presidential and referendum polls," Huang said.

Huang made the remark in response to questions by People First Party caucus leader Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋).

Chou asked Huang which polling approach would make fewer mistakes -- picking up the presidential and referendum ballots together and then casting them into three different ballot boxes or picking up the presidential ballot first, casting it into the ballot box and then repeating the process for the referendum ballot.

Responding to the commission's turnabout last night, Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that the Cabinet respected the CEC's decision.

"Although we're the supervisory body of national referendums, we do everything in accordance with the law and fully respect the professionalism and joint decision of the CEC," Lin said. "While we're entitled to offer our opinion, please don't misconstrue it as an absolute order because the CEC operates in a consultation manner."

The government's stance on the matter was clear, Lin said, adding the government wanted a polling system that was simple, convenient, fair and well-planned.

"We won't allow any mistakes to be made during the polling process so that some evil-minded people won't have any excuse to incite conflict or even riots," Lin said.

"We're also calling on local election commissions to cooperate with the CEC in carrying out the new plan," he said.