Recalls are not easy
As the historic recall wave targeting 26 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators continues, many civic groups and volunteers feel energized. A surge of public anger has driven the widespread momentum of the recall campaigns.
However, amid the passion, there might exist a dangerously overlooked fact: Successful recalls are much harder to achieve than they appear.
For a recall to succeed, two conditions must be met: The number of “yes” votes must exceed 25 percent of all eligible voters in the constituency and the “yes” votes must outnumber the “no” votes.
This is deceptively steep. Let us break down what this means using numbers.
Imagine a constituency with 100,000 eligible voters. In the last Legislative Yuan election, the turnout was 71.78 percent — about the national average. Suppose the KMT candidate won with 45 percent of the vote and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate got 40 percent. That would mean roughly 28,700 people voted for the DPP candidate. To recall the sitting KMT legislator, at least 25,000 “yes” votes would be needed. Nearly 87 percent of the people who voted for the DPP candidate in the original election must come out to vote “yes.”
Even if the 25,000 “yes” votes are achieved, they are meaningless if the “no” votes outnumber them. That becomes even more sobering in “blue-leaning” constituencies, where the original DPP candidate’s support base might have been less than 30 percent. In those districts, achieving 25 percent “yes” votes might require the turnout of all DPP supporters and some swing voters. That level of mobilization is difficult even in general elections, let alone a recall vote.
None of this is to say recalls are impossible. However, success demands a brutally honest understanding of the odds and a highly coordinated effort to beat them.
Every vote matters. Every absence hurts. Volunteers must mobilize people to vote, remind them again and drive home the urgency. To win, they must aim for 100 percent of their own base turning out to vote “yes.” Otherwise, the movement risks learning the hard way that arithmetic — not emotion — decides the outcome.
John Cheng
Taichung
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