The KMT and TPP have proposed six referendum proposals to be bundled with the year-end local elections. Legislators from both sides expressed concern yesterday about the difficulty of implementing these proposals. Central Election Commission Chairman Yu Ying-lung cited the example of merging the 2022 local elections with a constitutional amendment referendum, stating that if there are four referendum proposals, vote counting could take until 2 or 3 a.m. the following day. Regarding the KMT’s proposal to shorten the referendum announcement period to one to six months, Yu Ying-lung believes that this approach should not be reversed.
According to a report by the United Daily News, the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Affairs Committee yesterday invited the Ministry of the Interior , the Central Election Commission, the National Police Agency and other relevant units to give a special report on “Preparations for the local public officials’ election on November 28 this year, election neutrality, response to disinformation and the handling of the referendum”, and to answer questions.
Kuomintang legislator Chang Chih-lun questioned Yu Ying-lung about the number of referendum cases. Yu replied that considering the limits of the capacity of the nine-in-one elections, one referendum this year would be just right, two would be a bit too many, and three would be unbearable. He said that the referendum topics will be reviewed in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Referendum Act, and the final results are currently unknown.
If there are indeed six referendums to be voted on at the end of the year, Yu Ying-lung replied to DPP legislator Lee Kun-cheng that it would inevitably cause great difficulties for the election, “and we can only grit our teeth and bear it.”
Yu Ying-lung said that in the 2022 local elections combined with the constitutional referendum, there was only one referendum, and the vote counting didn’t finish until 11:40 pm. Based on this, it is estimated that if there is one referendum in the local elections, the vote counting can be completed on the same day; if there are two referendums, it will have to be past midnight; if there are three, the vote counting may be delayed until 1 or 2 am the next day; if there are four, it may even be until 2 or 3 am the next day.
Yu Ying-lung stated that “unconstitutionality is not the standard for passing or failing as stipulated in the Referendum Act.” Whether something is unconstitutional requires a judgment from the Constitutional Court. Based on the considerations of the Central Election Commission’s next committee in reviewing the anti-death penalty referendum, it has indeed strongly implied that any decision that violates the Constitutional Court’s ruling should not be a referendum item.
According to a report in the Taipei-based China Times, Yu Ying-lung expressed concern that the 10 referendums in 2018 caused the biggest blow to Taiwan’s electoral history because they were all announced less than two months before the election, causing voters to hesitate and delaying the voting process.
White House legislator Hsu Chung-hsin said that then-Central Election Commission Chairman Chen Ying-chien was an outstanding scholar, yet he still cannot withstand this heavy blow. Yu Ying-lung stated that he wanted to speak up for his colleagues at the Central Election Commission, arguing that the 2018 incident was the result of various complex factors, but society blamed the Central Election Commission for its mishandling. “Is that fair?” he asked. He also revealed that then-Deputy Chairman Chen Chao-chien has been depressed ever since. “A bright and sunny country nurtures political talent, and now he might die of depression! Have you seen him appear in public again? No, he must feel very wronged and remorseful.”
However, Chen Chao-chien later checked in on his private Facebook page, showing that he was at Kotohira-gu Shrine in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, and posted Yu Ying-lung’s news, saying, “It’s quite interesting that I was traveling in Japan and was unexpectedly questioned by the parliament.”
