Taipei: Taiwan’s Premier Cho Jung-tai announced on Tuesday that implementing electronic voting for Taiwanese citizens living abroad is “completely unfeasible,” citing potential manipulation threats from China. He addressed lawmakers at the Legislative Yuan, emphasizing the cabinet’s firm stance against the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) referendum proposal introduced last week.
According to Focus Taiwan, Premier Cho expressed concerns that overseas voters could be vulnerable to “control by foreign hostile forces,” particularly in response to a query from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Lin I-chin about the risks Chinese influence poses to Taiwan’s democratic processes. The TPP’s bill seeks to permit eligible voters to cast ballots outside their registered electoral districts by legalizing domestic transfer voting.
Lawmakers, including Lin, have criticized the TPP for not clearly defining absentee voting and domestic transfer voting in their proposal. There are also apprehensions that the bill could
inadvertently facilitate the future implementation of absentee or electronic voting systems.
Premier Cho differentiated between overseas and domestic voting reforms, stating that domestic reforms “could be discussed by everyone,” but only in the context of national elections, not local ones. He warned that allowing nationwide voters to participate in a single local election could lead to “big difficulties.”
Central Election Committee (CEC) Chairman Lee Chin-yung informed lawmakers that the executive branch has been reviewing absentee voting for some time. However, he cautioned that any policy affecting the stability of electoral operations would be “extremely serious.” He assured that discussions are ongoing and any further steps would be taken only after ensuring sufficient safeguards are in place.
