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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 A Preliminary Study of Single Member District Delimitation for Indigenous Legislators in Taiwan

A Preliminary Study of Single Member District Delimitation for Indigenous Legislators in Taiwan

Da-wei Kuan, Shih-yuan Lin, and Su-feng Cheng
2015 / 11
Volume 22, No.2

pp.71-108
10.6612/tjes.2015.22.02.71-108
Paper

Abstract

Two often discussed issues remain in the elections for indigenous legislators in Taiwan. One is the way for identifying plain or mountain indigenous district is outdated and the other is, unlike their regional counterparts, the multiple member district is continued to be implemented in election. The former is an issue related to constitution regulation which implies a considerably difficult to be dealt with under current circumstance. Yet, though the constitution does prescribe the number of total indigenous legislators for plain and mountain areas respectively, it does not prescribe the district magnitude for each election. This has provided a possibility for redistricting the indigenous legislators in election. This paper aims at redistricting the boundary from multiple member district into single member district and assessing the potential impacts on the elections for indigenous legislators. Three redistricting proposals are provided by this paper, the result suggests that in general, the criteria for delimitation such as population equality, contiguity and compactness could all be achieved. As for the impacts of replacing the multiple member district by single member district, this paper suggests that since population from the four main tribes of Amis, Paiwan, Atayal and Bunun make up eighty percent of the indigenous population, the electoral result after redistricting will not be dramatically different from those of multiple member district, all the seats might remain to be shared by the four main tribes. It is argued that, since indigenous legislators enjoy a solid electoral base at home, redistricting the electoral boundary would not affect her/his prospects for electoral victory. Moreover, the redistricting would significantly reduce the size of district and thus enable a more thorough constituency service.

Keywords

redistricting

single member district

indigenous legislator

legislative election