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Taitung chief agrees to one-step voting

The Central Election Commission (CEC) last night successfully convinced a pan-blue-governed county to adopt its one-step voting procedure for next month's legislative election and two referendums.

After a dinner gathering with chiefs of several local electoral commissions, CEC Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天佑) told reporters that the Taitung County Election Commission had decided not to act on a joint decision made by 18 pan-blue-governed cities and counties to boycott the CEC's one-step voting procedure.

Taitung commission chief Chuang Chung-wen (莊炯文), however, was the only commission chief from the 18 cities and counties to attend the dinner, Teng said.

Teng said the CEC had reached a set of agreements with the six commission chiefs present during the meeting.

It was agreed to install two large signs outside each voting station to remind people they had the right not to collect the referendum ballots, Teng said.

Two other signs would be displayed inside voting stations to designate the places voters should collect the different ballots so as to facilitate the voting procedure, he said.

The commission chiefs agreed there should be at least a 50cm distance between the table distributing the legislative ballots and the one handing out the referendum ballots, he said.

Ballots cast in the wrong box would still be considered valid, he said.

Teng said the CEC would continue to negotiate with the other 17 cities and counties that were absent from yesterday's meeting to understand their concerns about the one-step voting procedure.

A variety of reasons were given for the pan-blue no-shows. The Taichung City and Hsinchu County commissions said they were unable to send anyone because they were in the middle of electing a new chairman.

The Taipei City group flat out rejected the gesture and Taipei County's representative declined, citing health reasons.

Both Hualien and Taoyuan County's local election commission chairmen could not be reached. Their offices said the chairmen had meetings all day and would not show up for the dinner.

Tainan County's chief had originally said yes but pulled out at the last minute, saying that he had to attend a Ministry of Economic Affairs meeting.

Kinmen County said it was not necessary for it to send a delegate.

Central Election Commission Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said the sole purpose of inviting the 18 pan-blue voting district heads to dinner was to give them the chance to voice their concerns over the "one-step voting" system.

However, he reiterated that the CEC would not compromise over the issue, despite speculated by the Chinese-language United Daily News.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have been at each other's throats over the "one-step" versus "two-step" voting system for next month's election since the CEC announced on Nov. 16 that it would adopt the "one-step" system proposed by the DPP.

Under a "one-step" system, voters will be handed two legislative ballots and two referendum ballots upon entering polling stations.

The pan-blue camp wants the legislative ballots to be handed out separately from the referendum ballots.
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