After a heated campaign season, Election Day 2020 is finally here. Polling places across Taiwan opened at 8:00 am local time on Saturday, January 11. Voters must arrive at the polling place where they are registered to vote before 4:00 pm in order to be eligible to cast their ballots.
This election will determine who will be Taiwan’s next president and decide the makeup of the legislature.
There are three presidential candidates on this year’s ballot. Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, is running for a second term. Challenging her are the KMT’s Han Kuo-yu and the chair of the People First Party, James Soong.
In addition to a presidential ballot, voters will also be given two ballots allowing them to pick lawmakers.
One will allow them to vote for their area’s representatives in the legislature. The other will let them pick at-large lawmakers. These at-large lawmakers represent a party rather than a region. Voters pick a party, and the proportion of votes each party gets will determine the number of these at-large seats they win. Indigenous voters will be able to fill additional legislative seats that represent their communities.
As with every election season in Taiwan, this period around this year’s election has seen large numbers of people take to the road. Taiwan has no system of absentee ballots. In addition, voters may only cast their ballots at polling places in districts where their household registry is located- often a hometown or place where a family has roots. These districts may be located in areas that are distant from where voters actually live.
The Central Election Commission has said that vote counting should be finished by 10:00 pm.