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Forum supports one-step voting

Ballots are often handed out together when a referendum and election are held simultaneously in other countries, academics said yesterday, arguing this helps protect voter privacy.

They made the remarks at a Taipei forum hosted by the Taiwan Thinktank on referendum procedures in Germany, Switzerland, Japan and the US.

Guenter Whittome, a former researcher at the University of Hamburg whose work focuses on Taiwan's democratization and history, introduced procedures from Germany and Switzerland.

Although German states have different election regulations, voters "generally get their [election and referendum] ballots together at the entrance of poll stations after having their identity checked," he said.

In Switzerland, where national referendums have been a staple of the country's democracy since 1874, voters also receive ballots together when a referendum and election are held jointly, Whittome said.

Whittome displayed a Swiss referendum ballot from 2004 on which three referendum questions were printed, separated by dotted lines, "so that voters may tear off the part with the referendum they don't want to vote on," Whittome said.

In addition, Swiss voters receive booklets with a detailed introduction to each referendum before voting day, he said.

"How ballots are distributed wouldn't be an issue in Germany or Switzerland -- at least not a topic of political debate," Whittome said. "Convenience for voters is the only concern."

Citing US elections, Tsai Chia-hung (蔡佳泓), an associate research fellow at National Chengchi University's Election Study Center, said that putting everything on one ballot was not unusual.

"In the US you could have several referendums and different elections on one sheet," Tsai said. "Although there are proposals to change certain election procedures, there is no suggestion to print separate ballots."

In 2003, when California governor Gray Davis was recalled, "the recall and the election for a new governor were on the same ballot," he said.

Chunghua University professor of public administration Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) said that two-step voting on an election and referendum violated voter rights because not casting a referendum vote is essentially an expression of opposition.

Tseng cited the nation's 2004 referendum, held in tandem with the presidential election, as an example.

"Many voters gave up voting in the referendum because they were watched by a crowd of pan-blue supporters," which violated their freedom of choice, Tseng said.

The pan-blue and pan-green camps are locked in a debate over whether referendum and legislative election ballots should be handed to voters simultaneously in January.

The pan-green camp is pushing for voters to receive election and referendum ballots together, while the pan-blue camp says two-step voting would prevent confusion.

Two referendums -- a Democratic Progressive Party-sponsored referendum on recovering the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets and a KMT-sponsored referendum on empowering the legislature to launch corruption investigations against the president, vice-president or their families and subordinates -- will be held on Jan. 12.
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