Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, 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 In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

, originally another governmental organ equivalent to a chamber of parliament.

Current electoral system

Members are elected by

parallel voting Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It ...

: * 73 members by

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

in single-member districts * 6 by

single non-transferable voting Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a generalization of first-past-the-post, applied to multi-member districts with each voter casting just one vote. Unlike FPTP, which is a single-winn ...

in multi-member districts, exclusive for persons with

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

status * 34 by

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...

voting

Single-member constituencies

The

delimitation Boundary delimitation (or simply delimitation) is the drawing of boundaries, particularly of electoral precincts, states, counties or other municipalities.

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 , the electoral constituencies are to be revised every ten years based on population density. Demographic data is obtained by investigation of

household registration Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in differ ...

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 Reserved is a Polish apparel retailer headquartered in Gdańsk, Pomerania, Poland. It was founded in 1999 and remains the largest company of the LPP group, which has more than 1,700 retail stores located in over 20 countries and also owns such ...

for

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. 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

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 The largest remainder method (also known as Hare–Niemeyer method, Hamilton method or as Vinton's method) is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list voting systems. It contrasts with variou ...

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.

List of Legislative Yuan elections

Early parliamentary elections

Supplementary elections

According to the interpretation of the Judicial Yuan,J.Y. Interpretation No. 76
/ref> under the original constitution the

, Legislative Yuan, and

Control Yuan The Control Yuan is the supervisory and auditory branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Prior to constitutional reforms in the 1990s, the Control Yuan, along with National Assembly (electoral college) and the Legislati ...

were seen to constitute the Parliament in Taiwan. After 20 years of relocating the government to

, the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

-led

government of the Republic of China The Government of the Republic of China, is the national government of the Republic of China whose ''de facto'' territory currently consists of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other island groups in the "free area". Governed by the ...

amended the ''

Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion The Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion were provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of China effective from 1948 to 1991 and amended four times by the Centr ...

'' to start limited parliamentary elections. The elected members served together with existing members elected by the

1947 Chinese National Assembly election The 1947 Chinese National Assembly election was held between 21 and 23 November 1947 in China. This is the first election of under the newly ratified ''1947 Constitution of the Republic of China''. Under this constitution, the National Assembly ...

, the

1948 Chinese legislative election The 1st Legislative Yuan election was held in China between 21 and 23 January 1948. This election, and the preceding 1947 National Assembly election are the first elections of under the newly ratified 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China. ...

, and the 1947-1948 Chinese Control Yuan election in the respective chambers.

National Assembly supplementary elections

Legislative Yuan supplementary elections

Control Yuan supplementary elections

Supplementary members of the Control Yuan were indirectly elected by the provincial legislatures.

National Assembly elections

Following the constitutional reforms in the 1990s, elections for the National Assembly in its entirety was conducted. The chamber was streamlined in 2000 and became fully defunct in 2005.

References

{{Taiwanese elections 1