To protect election from China, Taiwan's in-person voting rule disenfranchises thousands of eligible voters

Securing Taiwan’s electoral process against potential interference from China has been a longstanding priority for the self-governing democracy and this commitment has led to the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of eligible voters over the years. According to a Bloomberg report, the key factor preventing many from participating in the electoral process is Taiwan’s insistence on in-person voting, a rule implemented since the island introduced direct elections nearly three decades ago for its 23 million residents. Consequently, individuals such as police officers and medical workers unable to leave their posts find themselves excluded. Additionally, Taiwanese citizens living abroad are compelled to take time off work and incur travel expenses to exercise their voting rights. According to the island’s Overseas Community Affairs Council, Taiwan’s diaspora totaled some 2 million people, including children, in 2022. While this approach may pose challenges for certain groups, its inherent value lies in its robust resistance to infiltration. This concern becomes particularly significant in the lead-up to a fiercely contested presidential election scheduled for Saturday, especially given China’s persistent claim of Taiwan as its territory and its repeated assertions of the intention to bring the island under Beijing’s control. “It is hard to hack a system based on paper ballots placed in a box that are counted that afternoon with the public welcome to watch,” Bloomberg quoted Margaret Lewis, a professor at Seton Hall University Law School, as saying. “The more Taiwan moves away from this straightforward system, the more it opens up the possibility for diminished trust in election results,” Lewis added. The Taiwanese government has repeatedly cautioned about Chinese attempts to influence the island’s elections. While concerns about foreign interference in elections are not unique to Taiwan, its requirement for in-person voting, with no provision for absentee balloting, sets it apart as one of the 53 out of 262 political systems studied by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, added the report. Various local politicians, including Cynthia Wu, the vice-presidential nominee of the Taiwan People’s Party in the upcoming election, have advocated for electoral reforms. All major political parties in the island support the need for reform, but there are notable differences in their proposed changes. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) contends that only those residing in Taiwan and unable to vote in person should be eligible for absentee ballots. According to Lee Chin-yung, the chair of Taiwan’s Central Election Commission, up to 2 million people in Taiwan could qualify for such voting, a proposal supported by the DPP. The party, known for strained relations with Beijing, argues that allowing absentee voting outside Taiwan might disproportionately benefit the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), which advocates for closer ties with China. This argument revolves around the belief that Taiwanese businesspeople residing in China, often referred to as “Taishang,” are predominantly supporters of the KMT. The impact of voters returning from abroad on election outcomes is disputed. In the 2020 presidential election, incumbent Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP secured a resounding victory, defeating KMT’s Han Kuo-yu by over 2.6 million votes. Tsai’s margin of victory was even larger, reaching 3 million votes, in the 2016 election. However, in the 2012 election, the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou prevailed over Tsai by less than 800,000 votes. Despite the challenges and uncertainties surrounding absentee voting, a considerable number of Taiwanese citizens do return to vote, although accurate data on this matter is lacking. Others, however, choose to abstain from the voting process. With inputs from agencies