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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Effectiveness of the New Party's Strategy of Forced Vote Distribution in the 1995 Legislative Elections

The Effectiveness of the New Party's Strategy of Forced Vote Distribution in the 1995 Legislative Elections

Cheng-hao Pao
1998 / 05
Volume 5, No.1

pp.95-138
Paper

Abstract

Prior to the 1995 Legislative elections, the only party which could equalize the vote was the KMT. Because KMT could reduce the cost of winning a seat, it was always overrepresented. Although the opposition parties did not have strong grass-root organizations, they still looked for other ways to equalize the vote to prevent underrepresentation. In the 1995 elections, the New Party (NP) used a new method (forced vote distribution) to equalize their vote in Taipei City, Taipei County and Taoyuan County. This method enabled 12 of their 14 candidates to win. Why was the NP able to use forced vote distribution in the election? Did all nominees in a particular district winning seats mean the forced vote distribution had been effective? In this paper, I discuss the policy making procedure and the factors that influence the effect of the forced vote distribution. Finally, I give some advice to the parties that will use this campaign strategy in the future.

Keywords

Multi-member district

Single non-transferable vote

Vote distribution

Party identification

Campaign strategy

Nomination errors