The Cabinet yesterday approved a bill that if promulgated would allow Taiwanese to vote in national referendums from outside their constituencies.
The bill, proposed by the Central Election Commission (CEC), would apply to people in Taiwan who are unable or unwilling to return to the place of their household registration, but would not include Taiwanese living overseas.
People who want to vote away from their home constituency would have to apply to the CEC in writing or online for permission to vote in absentia in a referendum a minimum of 60 days before the vote, the draft says.
Photo: Taipei Times
The CEC first submitted the bill to the Cabinet in 2020, in accordance with Article 25 of the Referendum Act (公民投票法), which states that absentee voting may be allowed during a national referendum, once it is prescribed in a separate law.
The bill failed to clear the legislative floor before the previous legislature ended its four-year term on Jan. 31, making it necessary to propose the bill again.
Once people complete their registration, the local branch of the CEC would compile a list of absentee voting applicants 55 days ahead of the vote, the bill says.
Household registration offices would inspect the list 50 days before the vote, informing applicants of the outcome of their application, it says.
Those who are approved would have their registration temporarily transferred to the household registration office in the constituency from where they applied 45 days ahead of the vote and their names would be published 15 days before the referendum, it says.
On the day of the referendum, they would be able to cast absentee ballots at the transferred voting station, the bill says.
CEC Vice Chairman Chen Chao-chien (陳朝建) told a news conference after the weekly Cabinet meeting that absentee voting would first be permitted for national referendums, with elections to be a consideration for later.
A law to allow absentee voting would be able to reference experience gained from its implementation in national referendums once a stable procedure is built for it, Chen said.
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS