The New Power Party (NPP) caucus yesterday proposed amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to lower referendum thresholds and the minimum voting age and switch to a plurality voting system.
At a post-caucus press conference, the NPP said it would modify the act to lower the signature threshold from 0.5 percent to 0.01 percent of the electorate to initiate a referendum proposal and lower the threshold to put a referendum proposal to a vote from 5 percent to 1.5 percent of the electorate.
“The Referendum Act is often described as a birdcage act, because its thresholds are set so high that it deprives people of their rights to referendum and makes referendums a tool of large parties capable of mobilizing a large number of voters,” NPP Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The party also proposed lowering the minimum voting age from 20 to 18, establishing absentee voting and shifting to a plurality voting system from the simple majority system, under which a referendum proposal is passed when more than 50 percent of eligible voters cast ballots and when more than 50 percent of the ballots cast are in approval of the proposal.
While average voter turnout is about 70 percent in Taiwan, the so-called “double-50-percent thresholds” are advantageous to opponents of a referendum proposal, because their parties can vote down a proposal simply by persuading 20 percent of the public not to vote, making the act unfair, Hsu said.
The NPP plans to revise the act to include Aborigines’ rights to be informed of and approve Aboriginal affairs, as well as allowing people to vote on modifications to territory.
NPP Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal said many laws were made without taking into consideration the rights of Aborigines, and because they are minorities, the government should not resort to public votes to decide Aboriginal-related affairs, which should be determined by Aborigines themselves.
The party proposed to abolish a provision mandating the establishment of the Information and Communication Security Technology Center as an administrative institution of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
NPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that information security is national security, which should not be put in the hands of a low-level, semi-government body not invested with the power to investigate.
The center should not be formed as a research institute of the ministry, whose duties do not involve information security, but should be run as an independent, cyberpolice-like agency with investigative rights under the National Security Bureau or the Ministry of the Interior, Huang said.
National Cheng Kung University professor Li Jung-shian (李忠憲) said a semi-government security agency could actually harm information security, as the center’s employees are not government officials bound by government laws, meaning they might reveal sensitive data to China after they retire from the center.
“The hasty establishment of the center [as an entity run by the ministry] would only impede reformation, so the NPP proposes to abolish its establishment,” Huang said.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
RSS