The Executive Yuan has agreed to increase incentives to polling booth monitors and volunteers for the local elections on Nov. 24, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday.
The incentives — two compensatory days off instead of one and a higher pay — should facilitate the commission’s efforts to enlist volunteers, it said, amid rising concern that the commission and voting station staff would be overwhelmed by the increased workload with the addition of 10 referendum questions to the nine-in-one elections.
The commission is reaching out to universities to recruit students as volunteers, with CEC Chairman Chen In-chin (陳英鈐) encouraging students to participate in the civic process.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The only requirement to qualify as a volunteer is that they be a Republic of China citizen, Chen said.
Asked whether having student volunteers would lower student participation in the vote, Chen said volunteers have the option of voting at their registered residences or the voting station where they have been assigned.
The Legislative Yuan last year approved amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) lowering the legal voting age for referendums to 18.
Recruitment results will be announced on a weekly basis, Chen said, adding that the commission’s target is to have civil servants and teachers make up half of the polling booth workers with the half being drawn from the general public.
There are to be four ballot boxes: for the nine-in-one election ballot; for referendum numbers 7 to 9; for referendum numbers 10 to 12; and for referendum numbers 13 to 16.
To date, the nation has held six referendums, the first and second held in conjunction with the 2004 presidential election, and the other four during the 2008 presidential election.
The commission said it hopes to conclude all ballot counting before midnight of voting day.
The commission also released a list of the 10 referendums that are to be included in this year’s vote: three by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — two on air pollution and one on banning food products from Fukushima Prefecture; three by the Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance against same-sex marriage and education; two by LGBT support groups on supporting same-sex marriage and education; one on having Taiwan participate in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games under the name of Taiwan and not Chinese Taipei; and one on scrapping the “2025 nuclear-free homeland” target.
Taiwan does not exclude the possibility of having formal diplomatic relations with countries that also have formal ties with China, regardless of Beijing’s stance, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Sunday. There was speculation in 2012 that Honduras was attempting to have simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taiwan and China, an idea that then-minister of foreign affairs David Lin (林永樂) rejected. Honduras severed formal ties with Taiwan on Sunday morning after establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has taken a more practical approach to relations with like-minded countries since assuming government in 2016. Previous administrations took the
WASHED ASHORE: Of the 16 bodies discovered along Taiwan’s west coast this month, two were Vietnamese and five were Taiwanese, coast guard officials said Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said that he has instructed prosecutors and maritime authorities to launch investigations after 16 bodies were found along Taiwan’s west coast this month, amid speculation that they were victims of smuggling or human trafficking rings. Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officials said the bodies, most of which had washed ashore, were found by coast guard personnel and local residents along the coastline from Keelung to Kaohsiung. Thirteen of the bodies are male and three are female, the CGA said, adding that items found on the bodies indicate that two of the men were Vietnamese, while three men
TASK FORCE DISPATCHED: MOFA said it would assist state employees with repatriation or relocation to other ally nations in the region after Tegucigalpa severed ties The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Monday ordered Honduras to vacate its embassy in Taiwan within 30 days of Sunday after Tegucigalpa made a similar demand of Taiwan. Taipei on Monday announced that it had cut ties with Honduras after the Central American nation earlier said in a statement that it had established ties with Beijing and ended its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Following the announcements, Honduran Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Garcia spoke on Honduran television saying that Taiwan would be required to vacate its embassy in the Honduran capital. In Taipei, MOFA later told a news conference that “according
CHINA TRIP: The former president said he hoped the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would work together to pursue peace, avoid war and strive to ‘revitalize China’ Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday began a 12-day tour of China with a visit to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing. He paid tribute to Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), a founder of the Republic of China, giving a short speech and then bowing in front of the memorial. “The people of both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the Chinese nation, are children of Yandi (炎帝) and Huangdi (黃帝),” he told reporters who had been allowed to follow him on the trip, referring to figures said to have founded of the Han ethnicity in ancient China. Ma has framed the trip as
RSS