Taiwan will hold its presidential and legislative elections on January 13, 2024. That's only 15 days away! Over the coming days I will have a few posts on the state of the race, including a deep dive into the legislative elections (spoiler alert: it looks like no party is going to win a majority).

I'm also in Taiwan for this cycle and will be posting regularly on Bluesky -- I have left behind the decrepit remains of Twitter for good, I hope -- and can be found at: @kharist.bsky.social. Bluesky finally opened posts to public viewing without requiring a Bluesky account, so I'm going to direct interested readers there for quick reactions on the campaign and breaking news. Also, for any Taiwan tweeps interested in making a similar migration, I have a few Bluesky access codes available -- hit me up on email and I'm happy to share. 

I'll also highlight a couple of resources here on Taiwan elections.

• The Central Election Commission has a decent English-language version of their website, and will report results in real time here on January 13. 
• MyFormosa (美麗島電子報) is the polling company with the best combination of a long track record of good survey work, frequent polls, and a detailed breakdown of their methodology. They may have a slightly green house effect but it's far less problematic than many of the other polling companies in this space. 
• TaiwanPlus is covering the campaign in depth and will have three hours of live English-language coverage on election day. 
• The Central News Agency's English-language site is Focus Taiwan, which also offers quality non-partisan news coverage. 
• The Taipei Times is the English paper of record for Taiwan. It's a sister paper of the green (i.e. DPP friendly) Liberty Times newspaper. 

Finally, for electoral rules geeks like myself, there are several laws that govern how these elections will be conducted. The key ones: 

• Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (for the presidential election) 
• Public Officials Election and Recall Act (for the Legislative Yuan elections)
• The Organic Law of the Central Election Commission
• Political Parties Act (passed in 2017, tightens requirements to start a political party and maintain one in good standing)
• Political Donations Act (passed in 2018, limits amounts and times for donations to candidates)
• Anti-Infiltration Act (passed in 2019, aimed at combatting PRC influence in Taiwan elections)

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Finally, for those readers interested in a deeper look at Taiwan's electoral management practices, I have a recent book chapter laying out the rules from beginning to end of the electoral process. It covers questions like "Does Taiwan allow absentee voting?" (No) and "Can candidates withdraw from the presidential race now?" (also no). 

This chapter is drawn from Electoral Malpractice in Asia: Bending the Rules, co-edited with Netina Tan and available from Lynne Rienner Publishing. It covers election regulations, rules, and their problems in 11 countries in the region: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar/Burma.

The big takeaway from that comparative study is that Taiwan is now top of the pack in Asia for professional non-partisan electoral management, and the kinds of shenanigans that bedevil elections in much of the rest of the region have mostly been eliminated in Taiwan. Expect this year to be no different -- Taiwan's election day system of voting and counting is exceptionally fast, efficient, low-tech, and transparent, and much of the rest of the democratic world could learn a thing or two from how Taiwan conducts elections. 

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, the Hoover Institution held Taiwan's 2024 General Elections: The Campaign So Far on Wednesday, November 29, 2023. The recording of this event is now available at the PTIP program website. 

On January 13, 2024, Taiwan voters will go to the polls to elect a new president and legislature. The results could have major implications for Taiwan’s relationship with the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific.

​In this event, three experts on Taiwan’s domestic politics weigh in on the state of the race, including the leading presidential candidates and parties, the messages of each campaign, and the issues animating the race so far. As the campaign enters the home stretch, they discuss the role of the PRC and the United States in the election, the most likely outcomes, and the consequences for the trilateral U.S.-Taiwan-PRC relationship. 

Chiaoning Su is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Journalism, and Public Relations at Oakland University, where she also serves as the Director of the Barry M. Klein Center for Culture and Globalization. Su is a communication scholar (Ph.D., 2015, Temple University) with a dual focus on two interrelated strands: the journalism of crisis and journalism in crisis. Her first line of inquiry delves into the representation and production of crisis news, while her second line of research centers on the role of journalism in the context of diminishing democracy. Her work has been published in Media, Culture, and Society, International Journal of Communication, Asian Journal of Communication, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, and Communication Review. Prior to her academic career, Su gained valuable professional experience as a communication specialist at Ogilvy Public Relations and worked on several political campaigns in Taiwan.

Dennis Lu-Chung Weng is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Sam Houston State University and the founding Director of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Institute (APPRI). He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2014. Dr. Weng has formerly taught at institutions including Wesleyan University and SUNY-Cortland. He currently holds research fellowships at Stellenbosch University and National Chengchi University, Taiwan. His research centers on comparative politics, international relations, and the dynamics between domestic political behavior and international politics, particularly in the US and Asia-Pacific regions. A recognized expert in his field, Dr. Weng's insights have been featured in scholarly publications, op-eds, and various media outlets. He is a noted commentator on US China-Taiwan relations and political events in both the US and Asia.

MODERATOR
Kharis Templeman is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and part of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. Templeman is a political scientist (Ph.D. 2012, Michigan) with research interests in Taiwan politics, democratization, elections and election management, party system development, and politics and security issues in Pacific Asia.
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INTRODUCTION BY
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor, by courtesy, of political science and sociology at Stanford. He co-chairs the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.