Nationwide general and local elections are held every four years, typically in January and November. By-elections and referendums are held on occasion. Electoral systems includefirst-past-the-post,proportional representation,single non-transferable voting, and aparallel mixture of the above.
General elections are held to elect thepresident andvice president jointly, and the 113 members of theLegislative Yuan. Local elections are held to elect magistrates ofcounties, mayors ofspecial municipalities,cities,townships andcounty-administered cities, chief administrators ofindigenous districts andvillage chiefs. Legislative Yuan and local elections are regional; citizens vote based on theirregistered address.
Elections are supervised by theCentral Election Commission (CEC), an independent agency under the central government, with the municipality, county and city election commissions under its jurisdiction. The minimum voting age is twenty years. Voters must satisfy a four-month residency requirement before being allowed to cast a ballot.[1]
Taiwan was ranked second most electoraldemocracy in Asia according toV-Dem Democracy indices in 2023.[2][3] Taiwan scored 0.831 on theV-Dem Democracy electoral democracy index in 2023.
Elections were held for the first time in Taiwan by the Japanese colonial government on 22 November 1935, electing half of the city and township councilors. The other half were appointed by the prefectural governors. Only men aged 25 and above and who had paid a tax of five yen or more a year were allowed to vote, which was only 28,000 out of the 4 million population. The elections were held again in 1939, but the 1943 election was canceled due to theSecond World War.[4][5][6] After the surrender of Japan and the transfer of control over Taiwan to the Republic of China, elections were held at the local level as well as to elect representatives to theNational Assembly and theLegislative Yuan.[7] The ceding of Taiwan was formalized under theTreaty of Taipei in 1952.[8][9]
Thegovernment of the Republic of China, led by theKuomintang,retreated toTaiwan Island in 1949 after losing theChinese Civil War with theChinese Communist Party. At that time, theTemporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion was enforced and largely restricted civil and political rights including voting rights of theTaiwanese people. In the eight elections starting from the1948 Republic of China presidential election inNanking (later known as Nanjing) to the1990 Taiwan presidential election, thePresident was indirectly elected by theNational Assembly first elected in 1947 and which had never been reelected in its entirety until the lifting of martial law. Similarly, theLegislative Yuan also had not been reelected as a whole since 1948 until the lifting of martial law. The provincial Governor and municipal Mayors were appointed by the central government. Direct elections were only held for local governments at the county level and for legislators at the provincial level. In addition, theMartial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987[10] also prohibited most forms ofopposition and Republic of China was governed as ade facto one-party state under theKuomintang although it maintained its status as ade jureparliamentary republic.[11]
From the 1990s, a series of democratic reforms were implemented inTaiwan. Since thelifting of martial law in 1987, the ROC has had two major political parties, the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party.[11][12] Since then, smaller parties have split from the two main parties and formed as new groups, largely within the Pan-Blue Coalition and Pan-Green Coalition.[13] TheAdditional Articles of the Constitution were adopted to grant full civil and political rights to theTaiwanese people (officially the people of theFree area of the Republic of China). Under the Additional Articles, thePresident are to be elected by popular vote and all seats in the national parliament are to be reelected. Following the reforms, the first parliamentary elections on Taiwan were held in 1991 for theNational Assembly and 1992 for theLegislative Yuan. The first election for provincial Governors and municipality Mayors was held in 1994. Until 1996, thePresident of the Republic of China was elected by theNational Assembly. In 1996, the Republic of China electoral code was amended to allow fordirect election of the President viaplurality voting[14][15] and Taiwan held the firstdirect election of the President and Vice President in 1996.
The provincial government was reconstructed as a subsidiary of the central government in 1998 and elections for governor and provincial legislators were terminated. TheNational Assembly ceased to be convened regularly in 2000 and was abolished in 2005. The number of members of theLegislative Yuan was reduced to 113 from 2008.Taiwanreformed 2008 the legislative election from thesingle non-transferable vote to parallel voting.[16]In recent years, the electoral system has been further consolidated the various elections into two categories: national elections and local elections, each election category to be held on the same day.
Since 2004 there have been 20referendums in Taiwan.
Presidential elections are held to jointly elect thepresident andvice president byfirst-past-the-post.
Legislative elections are held to elect the 113 members of theLegislative Yuan byparallel voting:
Nine types of local elections are held to elect:
The local elections are also known as "nine-in-one elections" as the election date has been consolidated in recent years. A resident of a county or indigenous district is eligible for five types of votes, whereas a resident of acity or non-indigenous district of a special municipality is eligible for three. Magistrates, mayors, chief administrators, and village chiefs are elected by first-past-the-post. Councillors and council representatives are elected by single non-transferable voting in multi-member constituencies.
In order to vote in Taiwan, one must be a national with household registration of theRepublic of China who will be 20 years or older on the day before the election.
For presidential elections, the voter must have once lived in theTaiwan area for six consecutive months or longer. Residents of the area at the time of the election are automatically registered while those living abroad must apply.
For legislative and local elections, the voter must have been living in the associated electoral district for four consecutive months or longer at the time of the election. For legislative elections, the electoral district for indigenous and party-list votes is nationwide. Eligibility for the three types of votes is evaluated separately.
For past elections, see respective articles.
The sovereignty was Japanese until 1952. The Japanese Treaty came into force, and at that time Formosa was being administered by the Chinese Nationalists, to whom it was entrusted in 1945, as a military occupation.
After occupying Taiwan in 1945 as a result of Japan's surrender, the Nationalists were defeated on the mainland in 1949, abandoning it to retreat to Taiwan.
| Presidential elections | |
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| Legislative Yuan elections | |
| Local elections | |
| Referendums | |
| National Assembly elections | |
| Recall elections | |
