With the presidential and legislative elections just eight months away, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators are pushing for legal amendments that would allow the elections to be held on a Sunday rather than a Saturday, and for polling stations to stay open later because of the anticipated high voter turnout.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has traditionally set polling day on the second or the fourth Saturday of the month in which an election was held, with voting taking place from 8am until 4pm.
DPP legislators, including Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) and Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), have proposed amendments to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) that would make election day the first Sunday of the election month instead.
Central Election Commission Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said that while he was neutral on the proposal, any delay in ballot counting would have a direct impact on the following workday
DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) has also proposed amending the laws to increase the time that polling stations are open to no less than 10 hours.
The proposal said that voting stations in other countries are already open for longer periods of time, with 10 hours in Germany and Australia, 11 in New Zealand, 12 in Canada, France, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, and 13 hours in the US and Japan.
Eight hours is insufficient and should be extended to at least 10 hours so that workers can vote after leaving work, they said.
However, the commission said it opposed extending the voting hours because no significant increase in voter turnout was observed in the Dec. 5, 2009, county and city mayor elections, despite the fact that polling stations were open from 7am until 5pm.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to