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Abstract
Before Taiwan’s Seventh Constitutional Amendment in 2005, there existed a system of party-list legislators (so-called “at-large legislators”), but voters could only vote for district legislators. After electoral reform, voters can now cast a separate two votes for their preferred district legislator and a political party. This study contends that the electoral reform incentivized parties to nominate “quality candidates” for the party list to garner voter recognition. This study analyzes the characteristics of party-list candidates from 1992 to 2024 who took part in ten congressional elections, and specifically focuses on the political recruitment of major parties in Taiwan. This research finds that parties recruited more highly educated candidates, reduced nominations of incumbent legislators, and increased nominations of a broader spectrum of candidates from various professions and social groups after the electoral reform. However, when examining the difference between a “realistic list” (“safe list”) and a “symbolic list” (“unsafe list”), parties have tended to prefer to place incumbent legislators on the realistic list, no matter before or after the electoral reform. Furthermore, when focusing only on the major parties, particularly the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party, it has been observed that after the electoral reform, they not only increased the nomination of professionals and social group representatives but also showed no significant difference in the placement of various occupations on either the realistic or symbolic lists. This indicates that the major parties did indeed nominate a more diverse societal representation in the post-reform period. However, veteran legislators and candidates with backgrounds in local or party factions still have had a higher chance of being included in the realistic list. This suggests that even after the electoral reform, the party list system has not been able to fully escape its role in balancing internal political forces within the parties.
Abstract
The Japanese electoral system had adopted the single non-transferable vote (SNTV). Under SNTV, three to five members were elected from each constituency based on a plurality of votes. However, a series of corruption scandals since 1988 in Japan had damaged confidence in political system. As a result, Diet passed new measures transforming the middle-size district system into a mixed-member system in January 1994, combining single-member district & PR party lists. This article introduces the reform process and the new electoral system.It was the first time that Japanese House of Representatives adopted the single-member district & PR party lists parallel system on October 20, 1996. The article is intended to describe the electoral process and analyze its political consequences.The preliminary conclusions of the study are:(1) The new electoral system in Japan is of great advantage to LDP.(2) The new electoral system didn't correct the 'money politics' and transform the electoral competition from candidate-oriented to party and policy-oriented in Japan.
Abstract
The mixed-member majoritarian system was first adopted in the 2008 legislative election in Taiwan. In accordance with this electoral system, each voter has two ballots to cast at the same time. The first ballot is for the candidates in the single member district, and the second is for the party list, which determines the seats each party receives. Theoretically, voters' decision on the second ballot depends not only on his or her party identification but also on the quality of party list. Since the two ballots system was recently adopted in 2008, most people are not familiar with the mixed-member majoritarian system. Therefore, this article attempts to examine the voters' perception of the party list and their preference, and furthermore to assess whether their perception and preference would affect their voting choice on the second ballot. The empirical survey data of TEDS2008L is analyzed in this article to answer these questions. It is found that while most voters can neither recognize the names on the lists of the two major parties nor indicate their preference among the lists. However, voters are significantly more likely to vote for the party list they recognize or prefer. This result indicates that parties should make every endeavor to enhance the quality of the party list in order to receive more votes in this newly adopted electoral system in Taiwan.
