A task force assembled by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus charged with reviewing optional amendments of the Referendum Act (公民投票法) met on Tuesday for the first time.
The DPP said that it felt it was necessary to reform the act after last month’s chaos, when referendums were held alongside the nine-in-one elections.
Task force members said they discussed measures to prevent fraud — such as using the names of deceased people on referendum petitions, which happened last month — as well as the establishment of a separate day for referendum voting.
Photo: CNA
The latter would be necessary to prevent local elections and referendums from interfering with each other, they said.
The task force hopes to deliberate on the specifics of a draft amendment at its next meeting, pending the finalization of the party caucus’ draft.
DPP legislators Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋), Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) and Shih Yi-fang (施義芳) have already submitted their versions of the draft.
During the meeting, it was proposed that a set day be established for referendum voting to provide sufficient time for voters to read and understand each item.
Human Rights Day on Dec. 10 was offered as a possibility, although no consensus was reached on the issue.
Members proposed different ideas about how to address election fraud.
Tuan’s draft suggests giving more authority to the Central Election Commission to scrutinize the wording of referendums, which should be simple, clearly understandable and “not twist the facts.”
A mechanism is needed to ensure that signatures are not forged, such as requiring a national ID card for each signature, he said.
There must be ways to establish the validity of signatures, he said, adding that the commission should create a system whereby voters could check whether their identity has been fraudulently used to sign any referendums.
Su suggested that referendums be rejected if a certain number of their signatures were found to be invalid, and that voting on a referendum should not be held until six months after it passes the threshold.
Su also suggested keeping referendum voting on the same day as national elections to conserve resources.
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