The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus yesterday urged the Central Election Committee (CEC) to consult voting regulations in the US, Japan and South Korea to create a way for people infected with COVID-19 to vote in local elections on Nov. 26.
CEC Chairman Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said last week that all eligible voters can cast ballots if they comply with measures implemented under the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法).
Under the policy, people who test positive for COVID-19 and are under mandatory seven-day isolation during the elections would not be allowed in polling stations.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
TPP caucus convener Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) told a news conference yesterday that the US allowed COVID-19 cases to be inside polling stations in the 2020 presidential election if they wore masks and kept a social distance of at least 1.8m.
South Korea extended voting hours during its presidential election in March and allowed COVID-19 cases and people who were under quarantine to vote by driving or taking disease prevention taxis to voting stations during the final 1.5 hours of polling, Chiu said.
Japan passed a bill in June to allow COVID-19 cases and people who were under quarantine to vote by mail or allowed them to vote at exclusive polling stations during its House of Councilors election in July, he said.
The CEC and the Central Epidemic Command Center “should not pass the buck between each other” by saying that “there is no legal ground,” Chiu said.
A proposed amendment to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to allow absentee voting was submitted to the legislature more than two years ago, but the CEC did not propose its own version, he added.
Chiu asked the CEC to draft a plan for absentee voting five months ahead of last year’s referendum, to which Lee replied that such a system would need to be electronic and would require nine months to create.
However, no effort was made to pass the amendment or establish the absentee voting system in time for the local elections, Chiu said.
TPP Legislator Jang Chyi-lu (張其祿) said that Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) blocked a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus proposal to hold an extraordinary legislative session to deliberate the amendment in July last year, saying at the time that it should be delayed until the following legislative session.
The CEC said in October last year that absentee voting would not be allowed in the referendum held in December last year, as “regulations and complementary measures were not in place,” Jang added.
Absentee voting is a common practice allowed in democratic countries around the world, Jang said, citing examples of migrant workers from Indonesia and the Philippines being able to vote in their countries’ elections while in Taiwan, and nearly half of Estonia’s votes being cast online.
As a “technology island” and a democratic model in East Asia, Taiwan should prioritize implementing an absentee voting system, he said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS