A Brief Introduction of Elections in Taiwan

Election Types

Taiwan has nine election categories. The two elections at the central government level are the President – Vice President Election and Legislators Election. The seven elections at the local level are for Municipal Mayors, Municipal Councilmen, County Magistrates ( City Mayors ), County (City) Councilmen, Township Chiefs, Township Councilmen, and Village Heads.  

The terms of all elected, including the 7th term legislators, are all four years now. The legislators' term had been amended from three to four years recently.

Election and Electoral Authority

The Central Election Commission and election commissions of Province, Municipality, County and City under theirs jurisdiction are responsible for elections in Taiwan. Elections are conducted under the principles of universal, fair, direct and confidential principles in accordance with “the Presidential –Vice Presidential Election and Recall Law” and “the Public Officers Election and Recall Law".

To ensure impartiality in the electoral process, election commissions at various levels are established in the form of collegiate system. All these commissions consist of party representatives and non-partisan nominees, to ensure the fairness of electoral affairs.         

Election and Political Parties

By the end of 2005, 116 political parties had registered. All political parties are free to nominate candidates to campaign in any election.

Parties such as the Democratic Progressive Party, Kuomintang, People First Party, Taiwan Solidarity Union, and Non-Partisan Solidarity Union have won seats in elections. Quite a significant proportion of seats are won by non- affiliated candidates.     

Election Procedures

Generally speaking, the election procedure in Taiwan consists of the activities listed below. Process Time varies for different election categories. 

Election Announcement

Candidate Nomination and Registration

Lot-Drawing for determining the order of candidates 

Campaign Activities

Public Forums

Display and Public Releasing Voters’ Lists

Printing Election Bulletins

Election Day

Electee List Announcement

Awarding Electee Certificates   

Characteristics of Elections in Taiwan 

  Compilation of Voters’ Lists

Taiwan has a sound household registration system. Compilation of voters’ lists is the statutory duty of government agents. Most citizens do not have to register to vote with exception of citizens residing overseas who have to register to vote in the president-vice president election.  

Citizens, age 20 or above, who have resided in their respective constituencies for at least four months, and are not been declared incompetent, are entitled to vote. Their records are automatically filed by the Household Registration Officers from 20 days prior to the Election Date.

There are approximately sixteen million voters throughout the country, which is around three fourths of the population.

The Right to Register for Candidacy    

The candidates nominated for president and vice president election are recommended by their respective political party or endorsed by a mandatory number of citizens. Candidates for Legislative Yuan seats who campaign nationwide and overseas representatives require political party recommendation. Otherwise, any citizen is free to register as an individual candidate.

Government Funded Campaign Activities  

Activities sponsored by government are

1.  Public Forums：Public forums are arranged by the election authority to get the opportunity for all candidates to deliver campaign related speeches. Some forums are broadcasted on nationwide TV stations. Especially for the election of county magistrates (city mayors), election authorities may arrange public debates by the consensus of two thirds of the candidates in an electoral district.

2.  Provision of Adverting Time Slots for political parities on TV: In the Legislator election, a candidate’s political party can submit a campaign video to the Central Election Commission (CEC). After review, the CEC will purchase ad. time slots  equally allocating time to each political party.

3.  Printing Election Bulletins: the bulletins contain candidate resumes and campaign manifestos.

4.  Campaign Expenditure Subsidy: Government will subsidize candidates and political parties’ campaign expenditures when they win a certain number of votes.

5.  Taxation Exemption: by any individual or company political donations, under a specific amount, for any candidate, political party or their campaign expenditure are tax exempted.                 

Reservation of political participation rights for minority ethnic groups, and women

In order to ensure the right of political participation by minorities, and women, minimum representative seats in any legislative body are reserved.   

Fair and Open Scrutiny System

There are approximately fourteen thousand polling stations throughout the country. A polling station is set up for approximately of 1,200 voters.

One hundred sixty thousand poll workers work on Election Day. Most of them are civil servants or teachers.

A polling station also has one to five monitors or political party scrutineers. These monitors are recommended by the candidates according to the average number of persons actually needed for screening the polling process; however, the right of recommending monitors shall be exercised by a political party only, not by an individual party candidate. 

Diversified Campaign Activities

In recent years, campaign activities have become very diversified. Marketing strategies and advertising creativity are being applied in election campaigns. Flags, hats, campaign vests, billboards, vehicle body advertisements, flyers, posters, newspaper, and TV advertisements, campaign rallies, and the Internet are used by candidates to attract voters and win support.

Taiwan also has many TV News Channels, and news agencies. Campaign News can be easily accessed by the public.  

Efficient Polling and Vote Counting Process

Polling stats at 8 am and closes at 4 pm on Election Day. Voters collect their ballot papers, which are colored according to the election type, cast their votes in the polling booth and then drop them in the ballot box.

Right after the poll closes, that polling location will be rearranged for counting votes. Vote-counting is composed of two stages, first the manual count is done, and then a computer count.  

While counting votes, poll workers are required to take out each ballot paper from the box, read out the vote loudly, and display it to the audience. The audience seats must also be arranged.  

After the manual count, the poll manager completes the result form and posts it in the station. Each copy must be signed by the manager and be given to the party or candidate representatives. 

Within 10days after the electee lists are publicly posted, candidates receive the full polling station result list of the election directly for their conveniences in verifying the figures.   

The computer Count follows the completion of the manual count. The Poll Manager deploys a messenger to deliver the results to one of 369 township (village, city, or district) electoral operation centers. In these centers, poll results are immediately uploaded to the server in the Election Counting Center. The public can access the latest election results via the Internet. The final result is usually available around four hours after poll closing.   

Rapid and Convenient Accessibility of Election  information  

With the development of computer technology, like many countries, Taiwan’s election website is used to provide lively up-to-dated polling counts results on election night. 

Besides, the CEC has also utilized its own cyberspace to release election related news , and to provide election law and regulation library online service, and a past election results data search engine.   

Future Prospects

Elections are the foundation of democracy. After decade’s development, Taiwan has established a liberal democratic election system. With this well developed foundation, the Central Election Commission will continuously strengthen the election legal system, improve the service quality, and reinforce the election effectiveness. The CEC will firmly adhere to its principles of independency and impartiality, and ensure a free, fair and transparent process for every election. It aims to shape a sophisticated election culture and to create a democratic constitutional model.