Taiwanese might soon be able to vote in referendums from anywhere within the country after the Executive Yuan yesterday approved a bill that would allow ballots to be cast away from home districts.
The new rules, which have been sent to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation, will not apply to the referendums on Dec. 18 or for people outside of Taiwan.
It is inconvenient and expensive for many people who work or study away from their registered district to travel there to cast a ballot, which affects their right to vote, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said of the need for absentee voting.
Eligible voters would be allowed to “transfer” their ballot to a polling location in another district, while those in remote areas or outlying islands could vote from elsewhere within their city or county, the proposed rules say.
However, people must apply at least 60 days in advance with their local CEC office for approval to vote in such fashion to allow time to prepare voter rolls, the bill says.
An estimated 2 million people nationwide would be affected by the changes, CEC Chairman Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said, adding that there was not enough time to implement the new rules by December, but hopefully they can be promulgated by 2023.
In early 2018, Article 25 of the Referendum Act (公民投票法) was amended to allow absentee voting in referendums, which required a separate law to be drafted to prescribe the procedure.
Absentee voting in referendums has been discussed for many years, but there has been disagreement on how it should be implemented, the CEC said.
With the understanding that voting should be protected from outside interference to ensure reliable results, the community has agreed on a gradual and progressive approach, it said.
Instead of other common methods of absentee voting, such as mail-in ballots, electronic voting and voting by proxy, the commission said it decided on a “vote transfer” approach, as it still allows people to vote in person on the day of a referendum.
If the system works well, it might inform potential absentee voting procedures for regular elections, the CEC said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS