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In Taiwan, parliamentary elections are held every four years to elect the 113 members of the Legislative Yuan, the unicameral legislature of Taiwan. The current electoral system was introduced in 2008. The constitutional amendments of 2005 extended term length from three to four years, reduced seat count from 225 to 113, and abolished the National Assembly, originally another governmental organ equivalent to a chamber of parliament.

Current electoral system

Members are elected by parallel voting:

• 73 members by first-past-the-post in single-member districts
• 6 by single non-transferable voting in multi-member districts, exclusive for persons with indigenous status
• 34 by party-list proportional representation voting

Single-member constituencies

The delimitation of the single-member constituencies within the cities and counties was initially a major political issue in the early years, with bargaining between the government and the legislature. Of the 15 cities and counties to be partitioned (the ten others have only one seat), only seven of the districting schemes proposed by the CEC were approved in a normal way. The eight other schemes were decided by drawing lots: "Taipei and Taichung cities and Miaoli and Changhua counties will adopt the version suggested by the CEC, while Kaohsiung city will follow the consensus of the legislature. Taipei county will follow the proposal offered by the opposition Taiwan Solidarity Union, Taoyuan county will adopt the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's scheme, and Pingtung county will use the scheme agreed upon by the Non-partisan Solidarity Union, People First Party, Kuomintang and Taiwan Solidarity Union."

Under Articles 35 and 37 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act [zh], the electoral constituencies are to be revised every ten years based on population density. Demographic data is obtained by investigation of household registration and should be compiled two years and two months before the tenure of current legislators end. The Central Election Commission reviews the boundaries, then submits any proposed alterations to the Legislative Yuan 20 months before the election for final consent and announcement.

Indigenous districts

Six seats are reserved for indigenous peoples. They are elected by single non-transferable vote in two 3-member constituencies for lowland aborigines and highland aborigines respectively. This system did not fulfil the promise in the treaty-like document A New Partnership Between the Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Taiwan, where each of the 13 recognised indigenous peoples was to get at least one seat, and the distinction between highland and lowland abolished.

Party-list

Seats are allocated using the largest remainder method with the Hare quota which, with 34 seats, is 2.9412%. A party's vote share must exceed a threshold of 5% to win any seats. Votes for parties which do not pass the threshold are first excluded. The vote share for the remaining parties are calculated. A party is allocated one seat for every 2.9412% of votes. The remaining seats are allocated in succession to the party with the largest remainder.

For each party, at least half of the legislators elected under this system must be female. Therefore, with an odd number of seats, females will always outnumber males.

Parliamentary elections since 1991

Early parliamentary supplementary elections (1969–1989)

According to the interpretation of the Constitutional Court (Judicial Yuan), under the original constitution the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and Control Yuan were seen to constitute the Parliament in Taiwan. After 20 years of relocating the government to Taiwan, the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China amended the Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion to start limited parliamentary elections. Delegates of the National Assembly and members of the Legislative Yuan are directly elected, while members of the Control Yuan were indirectly elected by the provincial legislatures. The elected members served together with existing members elected by the 1947 Chinese National Assembly election, the 1948 Chinese legislative election, and the 1947-1948 Chinese Control Yuan election in the respective chambers.

See also

• Legislative Yuan constituencies
• Politics of Taiwan
• Presidential elections in Taiwan
• Elections in Taiwan

References

1. January 31, 2007.CEC Completes Legislative Constituency Redistricting Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine. Taiwan Headlines. Retrieved on 2008-01-12.
2. J.Y. Interpretation No. 76
3. 中央選舉委員會歷次選舉摘要－國民大會代表選舉
4. 中央選舉委員會歷次選舉摘要－立法委員選舉
5. 中央選舉委員會歷次選舉摘要－監察委員選舉

v t e Elections and referendums in Taiwan
Presidential elections	1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 2028
Legislative Yuan elections	1969 1972 1975 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 Next
Local elections	1935 1936 1939 1940 1946 1950–51 1952 1954 1955 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1963 1964 1965 1968 1969 1971 1972 1973 1975 1977 1978 1981 1982 1985 1986 1989 1990 1993 1994 1997–98 2001–02 2005–06 2009 2010 2014 2018 2022 2026
Referendums	2004 2008 (Jan) 2008 (Mar) 2018 2021 2022
National Assembly elections	1969 1972 1980 1986 1991 1996 2005
See also: Elections in the Republic of China (1912–49) List of by-elections in Taiwan

• Legislative elections in Taiwan
• Lists of elections