The National Students’ Union of Taiwan is on Thursday to conduct a simulated vote for the Jan. 11 elections in a bid to raise public awareness about young people’s voting preferences, it said yesterday.
The union is comprised of student groups from universities nationwide.
The simulated vote would run from Thursday 8:20pm to Sunday 8:20pm, and a news conference would be held on Monday to announce the results, the union said.
Students can cast ballots on their favored presidential candidates and parties in the simulated vote, which could be seen as an opinion poll conducted among university students nationwide, it said.
The union said it has asked each presidential candidate, political party and regional legislative candidate their stances on several popular youth issues prior to the simulation.
The issues include whether the voting age should be lowered from 20 to 18, whether the nation should use the title “Taiwan” or “the Republic of China” when participating in international organizations and whether online media should be regulated by the National Communications Commission, as well as marriage equality, the union said.
The commission only regulates broadcast media.
The candidates’ answers would be presented in the simulation as reference for students to learn more about their youth policies, it said.
The idea of holding a simulation was brought up in an internal union meeting in August, and it cooperated with a private company to set up a virtual voting system on Facebook, it said.
Students who want to vote need to upload an image of their student identity cards and independent volunteers from about 30 student associations would review their identification for ballot counting.
The simulation is not funded by any political party, as the company that helped establish the voting system did not charge any fees, which saved the union about NT$100,000, it said.
The Taiwan New Century Foundation and other culture-focused associations, none of which have any political affiliations, supported the union in paying for miscellaneous expenses, it said.
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