Hsinchu County and Tainan are both likely to gain an extra legislative seat during redistricting ahead of the 2020 elections, while Pingtung County and Kaohsiung are likely to each lose a seat, Central Election Commission Chairman Liu I-chou (劉義周) told lawmakers yesterday.
He made the comment in response to a question from a lawmaker, adding that the projection was based on population data from August last year.
“Normally speaking, the relative population is unlikely to change much,” he said, calling the projection the “basic trend” for redistricting.
The commission’s redistricting plans are not set to be finalized until May next year and they will be based on this November’s population data.
The anticipated changes would see the number of Tainan electoral districts increase to six and Hsinchu County to two, while Kaohsiung would drop to eight districts and Pingtung to two.
The Constitution fixes the number of legislative districts at 73, while the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) says the non-partisan commission should adjust electoral districts every 10 years.
The next round of redistricting would be the first since the current system was implemented following constitutional amendments in 2007.
“At this point, Hsinchu County already has a bigger population than Chiayi County, which has two seats,” said Kao Mei-li (高美莉), who heads the commission’s department for electoral affairs.
The commission projects that only Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Tainan and Hsinchu are likely to have their seat numbers or legislative district boundaries change, she said.
“The main guarantee that districts are fair is that we make our decisions based on population, so any additions or subtractions will not necessarily favor either the pan-green or pan-blue camps,” she said, citing provisions of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act which also mandate that electoral districts take into account the boundaries of administrative districts, local history, as well as geography and transportation.
However, any redistricting plans proposed by the commission is still subject to approval by the Legislative Yuan, she said.
If the possible changes fail to gain legislative approval before the legal deadline, the premier and legislative speaker would have to hold direct negotiations to settle the issue, as happened in 2007.
The commission was originally empowered to adjust district boundaries every four years, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature passed an amendment in 2010 to allow redistricting once every 10 years, allegedly passed to protect a KMT seat in Kaohsiung, which was set to lose one seat to Tainan.
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