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Pan-blue constituencies face voting staff shortage

Amid a continuing dispute between the central and local governments over the manner in which the legislative elections and referendum ballots should be handed to voters, the constituencies that have insisted on using the two-step format are facing a shortage of poll station staff.

The Election and Recall Law of Civil Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法) stipulates that more than half of poll station staff must be government employees. However, more than 100 vacancies in Taipei City, 35 in Hsinchu City and 200 in Taichung County remain to be filled.

Central Election Commission (CEC) officials and the Taipei City Election Commission have said that the shortage resulted from the dispute over the ballot-issuing procedure between central and local governments.

The legislative elections, along with two referendums -- one proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party to reclaim the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets and another proposed by the KMT that aims to give the legislature the power to investigate the president, the vice president, their subordinates and family members for corruption allegations -- will be held on Jan. 12.

To simplify the voting process, the CEC last month adopted the one-step voting system, meaning that both election and referendum ballots would be handed to voters at the entrance to poll stations.

However, pan-blue politicians insisted on a two-step voting system, in which voters first finish voting and cast ballots for the election before receiving ballots for the referendum.

Eighteen pan-blue governed governments have insisted on using two-step voting.

The Cabinet warns that any government employee who fails to follow the CEC decision would be penalized.

Fearing reprimands, many city government employees have been reluctant to serve at poll stations, Taipei City Election Commissioner Huang Ming-hsi (黃明細) said.

The CEC said yesterday that the willingness of officials to serve at poll stations was a priority, but that if necessary the government could appoint employees to fill the vacancies.
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