President Tsai Ing-wen is urging young people to help secure Taiwan’s future by getting out and voting in the 2020 election.
Taiwan heads to the polls on Saturday, and Tsai is hoping to win a second term. She is spending the final days before the election on the road in a final campaign push that is taking her from Taiwan’s far south up to the north.
On Tuesday, Tsai stopped in the southern county of Chiayi for a press conference aimed at getting more young voters to the ballot box.
One obstacle to increasing voter turnout in Taiwan is the distance many voters must travel in order to cast their ballots. Taiwan has no system of absentee ballots. In addition, voters can only vote in the precincts where their household registrations are located, often a hometown far from where they actually live.
At Tuesday’s press conference, Tsai invited six young voters who live abroad to share their stories of making the journey back home for this year’s election. Among the speakers were young Taiwanese people living in Japan and the US.
Tsai said that this year’s contest is being fought for young people. She said that Taiwan’s future belongs to its young people, and that she hopes young voters will stand and be counted at a critical moment for the nation.