The government plans to allow domestic voters to cast absentee ballots in presidential elections starting in 2012, the Ministry of the Interior announced following an interministerial meeting Sept. 30.
“Under the proposed amendments to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act, all eligible voters, including convicts and electoral workers, will be qualified to cast absentee ballots,” said Chien Tai-lang, MOI deputy minister. “This design excludes ROC citizens living abroad.”
Eligible voters could apply for transfer voting, which would allow them to vote in other cities or counties if on election day they are unable to reach the appointed voting station based on their registered permanent residence. In addition, voters behind bars would be able to cast their ballots in prison so that their basic civil rights would be protected, he added.
The proposed revisions also stipulate that election workers can vote at their workplaces, which would no longer need to be in the city or county of their permanent residence.
Chien said the ministry decided to prioritize presidential elections for absentee voting due to their relative simplicity, involving only one ballot.
Commenting on the MOI’s move, Kuomintang legislator Wu Yu-sheng welcomed the decision to implement absentee voting gradually. Aboriginal legislator Kao Chin Su-mei of the Nonpartisan Solidarity Union said it could help raise voter turnout among aborigines whose registered permanent addresses are often in remote areas.
Opposition Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Kuan Bi-ling, however, was concerned that an absentee voting system could compromise the principle of a secret ballot.