The Central Election Commission (CEC) should avoid reviewing the substance of proposed referendums, the Legislative Yuan’s Organic Laws and Statutes Committee said in its report on the Referendum Act (公民投票法).
Under the act, there are five areas that the competent authority — which is the commission in the case of national referendums — needs to examine in the process of reviewing proposals for referendums, the bureau said.
However, these five areas do not include a review of the substance of the proposed referendums, it added.
An amendment to the act in December last year abolished the Cabinet’s Referendum Review Commission.
Since then, controversial referendum topics, such as the legislation of a “special holy matrimony law” and banning the public display of the Chinese flag, have emerged.
The amendment also lowered the thresholds for initiating, seconding and passing referendums.
Under the amended act, a referendum would pass if the number of valid “yes” votes exceeds the number of “no” votes and reaches a quarter of eligible voters.
The lowering of the thresholds has resulted in a surge of referendum proposals.
Thirty-seven proposals have met the signature requirement and are currently under review, the latest commission statistics showed.
In response to the surge in the number of referendum proposals, the commission should evaluate the situation, propose a counter-policy and submit a report to the Legislative Yuan, the bureau said.
As it is impossible to predict how many referendum proposals there would be, and an excessive amount of referendums would make electoral tasks more difficult, the polling process less smooth and the commission more susceptible to suspicion and criticism, the bureau also suggested in its report that the Legislative Yuan grant the commission the authority to decide whether referendums need to be held at the same time as nation-wide elections.
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