Taiwan’s public vote-counting system is one of the most powerful and unique aspects of its democracy, a US academic said after observing the presidential and legislative elections on Saturday.
“It’s completely transparent, low-tech, open and inspires confidence,” Kharis Templeman, a researcher at Stanford University and program manager of the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project, said in a telephone interview. “I believe that the whole world can learn something from Taiwan’s elections.”
Taiwan’s vote-counting process, in which poll workers hold up each ballot and call out the name of the candidate selected, is open to the public.
“Everyone is allowed to watch, record, supervise and even call out any mistakes,” Templeman said, adding that those involved are “using their lives to protect democracy.”
Although Saturday’s elections were not his first time observing Taiwan’s vote-counting process, he said that it was still incredibly moving.
“It strikes me every time I’ve come here to observe the elections just how good the Taiwanese election [system] is,” Templeman said.
Another impressive part of the process, and one that contributes to the legitimacy of the results, is the high level of efficiency, Templeman said, adding that the final results are usually known four to five hours after the polls close.
Regarding the campaign, he said that misinformation, false news and rumors in the media had increased compared with previous elections.
“But Taiwan has demonstrated that democracy can survive misinformation,” Templeman said.
Going forward, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who won a second term, would now have more flexibility to develop her policies, as she no longer has to worry about re-election, he said.
As for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which suffered crushing defeats in the presidential and legislative elections, Templeman said that the party needs new leadership and the input of young people.
Tsai won re-election with a record 8.17 million votes, or 57.13 percent of the total.
It was the highest vote total ever recorded for any candidate in a presidential election in Taiwan, breaking the previous high of 7.66 million votes received by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT in the 2008 election.
Separately, analysts commenting on the electoral results said that the relationship between Taiwan and the US is expected to continue to strengthen.
Taiwan Think Tank executive committee member Lai Yi-chung (賴怡忠) said that Taiwan could be described as one of the US’ best partners in Asia, adding that Saturday’s elections were essential to defending freedom and democracy in the Indo-Pacific region.
Ever-improving relations between the two nations over the past four years were the result of the US openly supporting governments that uphold democracy and freedom, not because of any favoritism, he said.
“There is good mutual trust between the US and the Tsai administration, which strengthens US-Taiwan cooperation,” Lai said.
“We should be able to see further development between the US and Taiwan,” he said, forecasting that military and other exchanges and cooperation would continue to deepen over the next four years.
Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that Tsai’s policies and positions are quite stable and have not demonstrated any drastic changes, which is very important in the governance of regional security.
In Tsai’s second term, the number of visiting US military groups is expected to increase annually and would become the norm, he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of