Voting from Absence in Taiwan: The Visible Cost of Traveling Home, the Harder-to-Calculate Cost of Trust

30-Second Overview: Most voters in Taiwan still must return to their registered household location to vote, and absentee voting is not simply equivalent to mail or online voting. Election officials already have limited voting options at their work locations, and a new voting system for Indigenous peoples will be added in the 2026 local elections. The real difficulty lies in how to expand convenience while safeguarding the principles of in-person voting, secret ballot, ballot custody, and public vote counting. The estimated 8,896 types of ballots in the Nine-In-One elections make this choice question particularly concrete.

The estimate of 8,896 ballot types is the Central Election Commission's (CEC) projection for the 2026 Nine-In-One local elections.

On January 26, 2026, a legislative hearing on absentee voting was held in Room 202 of the Legislative Yuan's Red Building. Tsai Ming-ru, Deputy Chief Secretary of the Taipei City Election Commission, warned that if local elections fully adopted transfer voting, the number of ballot counting stations alone could increase by two to three times, requiring a proportional increase in personnel. On the other side, scholars supporting reform questioned whether this estimate lacked sufficient empirical basis. ¹²

What was discussed at the table was a seemingly simple wish: being able to cast a vote for one's registered household district while residing elsewhere. Under the table lay nearly 9,000 types of ballots, cross-county registration lists, transport and sealing procedures, secret voting, and vote-counting supervision.

8,896 Types

This is the CEC's estimate of the types of ballots for the 2026 local public official elections, not the actual number of printed copies. Each type of ballot corresponds to an electoral district and a specific list of candidates. ¹

The most visible benefit of absentee voting is saving a trip. What truly determines whether a system can endure is whether the ballot leaving the household district can still allow the losers to trust the result.

Absentee Voting Is More Than One Method

"Absentee" describes a voter not voting at the time or place usually specified, without limiting the technology. International IDEA places early voting, mail voting, mobile ballot boxes, proxy voting, special polling stations, overseas voting, and voting outside one's district within the scope of special voting arrangements. Each additional method increases the election authority's workload regarding identity verification, ballot delivery, custody, transport, counting, and auditing. ³

The most common form discussed in Taiwan, "transfer voting," retains paper ballots and polling stations. Voters first apply to move their voting location to another site. On election day, they go in person with identification, receive the ballot for their original district, mark it, and place it in the ballot box. The CEC condenses this practice into four conditions: "the person themselves, in person, on the day of voting, going to the polling station." ¹

Other methods alter more links:

These systems may all make voting easier, but the costs and risks differ. Grouping them all under "absentee voting" and then asking for support or opposition often leads people to think they are answering the same question.

📝 Curator's Note

A common trap in absentee voting is terminology. Some may be thinking of voting for a Hualien district while in Taipei, others of mailing the ballot home, and still others of voting via mobile phone overseas. Without clarifying the methods, political stances quickly answer for technical details.

The Principle of Household Registration Has Already Had Two Narrow Gates

The current Article 17 of the Act of Election and Recall of Public Officials is straightforward: electors should vote at their household registration polling station. The first narrow gate is reserved for polling station staff. They may vote at their work location, but their household registration and work location must be within the same electoral district or same municipality/county. This is more akin to adjusting within the same district, far from cross-county transfer. ⁴

The second narrow gate appeared at the end of 2025. After the Legislative Yuan passed the amendment in the third reading, current Article 57 requires election authorities to set up separate polling stations to safeguard the secret voting rights of Indigenous peoples, or to conduct various public official elections at regional election polling stations, excluding the restriction of voting at the household registration location. The Ministry of the Interior publicly pointed out at the time that this amendment only exempts specific identities from restrictions, and fairness and implementation methods remain controversial. ⁴⁵

The CEC conducted simulation exercises for the new Indigenous voting system for local elections in August 2026. Taiwan has already moved past the binary choice of "whether there is absentee voting." The system is beginning to move, but the scope is narrow, and every step encounters the same set of problems: where the ballot is kept, who can claim it, and how to prevent others from guessing choices based on small sample sizes. ⁶

This new Indigenous voting system started from secret voting; convenience of transportation was not the initial reason. In polling stations with very few Indigenous electors, the few ballots cast may make individual choices easy to predict. Concentrating or transferring ballots can protect secrecy. The workflow, ballot types, and election burden after concentration require new designs.

Taiwan touched the core of absentee voting for the first time and found that convenience and secrecy sometimes stand on the same side, but sometimes also pull against each other.

A Law That Has Been Walking for Years, Still Negotiating

A comprehensive system did not suddenly emerge in 2026. Article 25 of the Referendum Act has already left space, allowing national referendums to stipulate absentee voting through separate laws. The Executive Yuan passed the draft "Law on Absentee Voting for National Referendums" again in February 2024, choosing domestic transfer voting: electors must apply sixty days before election day, and still go in person to designated polling stations on election day. If the referendum is held on the same day as national elections, the draft does not apply. ⁷

This version deliberately starts from the scenario of "only one type of referendum ballot nationwide." The CEC also recommended in its written report for the 2026 hearing to first accumulate experience through national referendums, and then gradually handle public official elections. Referendums are issue-based votes; when transferring, there is no need to move local candidate lists to every corner of the nation. ¹

Another path goes further. The draft "Absentee Voting Law" proposed by the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) caucus includes presidential and vice-presidential elections, central and local public official elections, recalls, and national referendums. Legislative Yuan records show that the draft was extracted by the committee in December 2025, directly submitted to second reading, and delivered for negotiation. Negotiations were held on January 15, 2026. As of September 1, 2026, the page did not show that third reading was completed. ⁸

So "why Taiwan still has no absentee voting" is not precise. A question closer to the current situation is: Taiwan already has two narrow arrangements, an Executive Yuan draft starting with national referendums, and a Legislative Yuan draft covering various elections. Political and election authorities have not yet reached a consensus on large-scale implementation.

Who Bears the Threshold of Returning Home

For those whose household registration and living location are the same, voting may simply be walking to a nearby school. For those working, studying, or caring for family members in other counties/cities, it is a bus ticket, a weekend, or even a shift that cannot be swapped. For residents of outlying islands, weather adds another layer of uncertainty.

Military, police, firefighters, medical staff, and other personnel on duty on election day may be maintaining the smooth voting for others. Voters hospitalized, with limited mobility, or in long-term care may not necessarily reach the polling station even if the law provides assistance within the station. The common service targets listed by International IDEA also include those away from home, hospitalized or homebound, persons with disabilities, those performing public duties, and detainees. ³

The situation of prisoners pushes the contradiction to the most obvious point. A 2026 Constitutional Court case recorded that a prisoner with voting rights had requested a polling station be set up in the prison. The ruling ultimately did not accept the case, making no substantive judgment on whether the system was unconstitutional. Court records still clearly presented the status quo: the law has no special procedures for prison voting, and prisoners find it difficult to return to their household registration location under guard. ⁹

Regarding overseas voters, the Overseas Community Development Council's report at the 2026 hearing pointed out that the Constitutional Amendments use the text of "returning to the country" to exercise presidential and vice-presidential voting rights. Therefore, changing this election to overseas voting involves constitutional amendment levels. Other public official elections and domestic transfer voting must be discussed separately. ¹⁰

What absentee voting attempts to fill is the distance between "having a vote in law, but being unable to reach the ballot box in reality." But if the system only serves those easiest to apply for and most familiar with digital tools, it may replace the original geographic threshold with an administrative one.

8,896 Types of Ballots, Difficult Because Every One Must Go Home

Presidential elections treat the whole nation as one electoral district, so there is only one type of presidential ballot. When Legislative Yuan elections are combined with presidential elections, the CEC calculates regional, Indigenous, and proportional representation ballots, totaling 76 different types of election ballots. For the Nine-In-One local elections, where elections for county magistrates, legislators, township mayors, representatives, Indigenous district chiefs, and village heads are held on the same day, the estimate reaches 8,896 types in 2026. ¹

If a voter registered in Hualien applies to vote in Taipei, the Taipei polling station must prepare the Hualien ballot they are entitled to claim, while ensuring the Hualien list does not let them claim it again. If the ballot is counted in Taipei, the results must be safely and correctly returned to the original district for aggregation. If the ballot is returned to Hualien to be counted, the sealing and transport time will be extended.

Local election candidate lists look similar, but cannot be distributed incorrectly. Every polling station must also handle pamphlets, notices, venues, staff training, and exception handling. The two-to-three times increase in counting stations mentioned by Tsai Ming-ru is a warning from the local election side. At the same hearing, Chang Kuei-mei from National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology responded: "I don't know how that was calculated," demanding more scientific basis. ²

Placing these two statements together shows that the controversy is not only about values, but also about operational models not yet public enough for joint verification. How many polling stations need to be added, how many ballots each needs to prepare, and how to control error rates can all be answered through small-scale pilot programs and public simulations.

Luo Cheng-tsung from National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology judged at the same hearing that a comprehensive system "would take at least until after 2027," citing that systems and budgets would not be ready in time for the 2026 local elections. This is a scholar's opinion on the timeline, not a confirmed statutory date, but it reminds us of one thing: the date a law is passed and the date a system can safely go live are inherently two different dates. ²

📝 Curator's Note

8,896 should be a stress-test checklist, not an answer to terminate reform. Using it to terminate discussion turns numbers into a gatebolt. Breaking down each type of ballot into lists, printing, transport, and counting processes turns it into an engineering blueprint.

Support and Concerns Protect Two Kinds of Democratic Experience

Supporters of absentee voting first see those voters forced to be absent: those who clearly have voting rights but cannot reach the designated ballot box due to work, study, care, guard, or transportation. If the system can move, civic qualification need not be decided by a return-home bus ticket, and participation in public decisions no longer depends on being able to spare a day and bear a journey.

Those with reservations first see the vote-counting scene after controversy. When vote counts are close, any list error, lost ballot, or supervision gap may be amplified into a question against the entire election. If convenience increases, but the losing side no longer trusts the procedure, expanded participation may also be canceled out by distrust.

The entrance to political participation connects to the exit where election results take effect: voters must be able to cast their votes and also believe that every vote is counted correctly. Both concerns belong to democratic experience. If reform only calculates how many more voters there are, it misses the latter. If discussion only lists risks without estimating how many people are excluded by the current system, the former will forever lack weight.

Therefore, before legislation, there must be repeatable election experiments. Choose a county/city for a simulation, publicly displaying the number of ballot types, venues, and personnel needed under different application volumes. Then have political parties, election officials, and civic groups walk through claiming ballots, sealing, counting, and aggregating from the beginning. Controversy will still exist, but it can begin revolving around the same set of data.

Pilot data cannot have only the conclusion of "zero major incidents." The number and reasons for rejected applications, usage patterns across different ages and regions, how minority ballots are kept secret, and how much extra time election staff spend should all leave comparable records. If convenience is only obtained by metropolitan area voters familiar with online applications, the system must still supplement paper applications, clear notices, and appeal channels. If errors or duplicate lists occur, the specific node of error must be made public, rather than piecing together the process after election controversies.

The truly useful questions become smaller and more precise: When is the list locked, how are temporary household registrations handled, how many extra or fewer ballots are printed, who escorts the ballot boxes, and where small-sample ballots are counted to avoid exposing individual choices. With each answer, the system moves forward one step.

How Can a Convenient Ballot Still Be Trusted

Taiwan's current voting has a very short chain of trust: the person brings identification to the designated polling station, marks the ballot behind the privacy screen, places the paper ballot in the on-site ballot box, and immediately converts the venue to a counting station after voting ends, allowing anyone to watch the vote counting. The credibility described in 選舉過程 and 中選會制度 largely comes from ordinary people being able to understand this process. ⁴

Absentee voting will lengthen the chain of trust. Design must answer at least five questions:

1. How to guarantee the same person only claims one ballot?
2. How can an off-site polling station obtain the correct district and correct type of ballot?
3. How to avoid pressure from family, employers, prisons, or caregivers when marking the ballot?
4. After voting ends, how are ballots and results sealed, transported, aggregated, and audited?
5. How can political parties, candidates, and civic observers see every key link?

Mail voting pushes free marking and postal custody into the household space. Online voting must simultaneously prove "this is what you voted" and "no one can know who you voted for." Special polling stations serving prisons, hospitals, or military camps must also handle the power relationship between facility managers and voters. The CEC therefore believes that, at this stage, transfer voting is closer to existing habits than mail, proxy, or electronic voting. ¹

International IDEA's comparisons also remind us that special voting arrangements can improve accessibility, but do not necessarily increase voter turnout. Traditional voting remains the comparative benchmark for election integrity. Each additional arrangement increases administrative complexity and cost; transparent communication, observation, and auditing are necessary conditions for maintaining trust. These international experiences can help Taiwan list questions, but cannot replace Taiwan's own pilot evidence. ³

A Progressive Path That Can Be Verified

Taiwan can first publicly evaluate the application, ballot-claiming workflow, error situations, and secrecy safeguards of the 2026 Indigenous voting new system, then choose a single-ballot-type national referendum for domestic transfer voting pilots. The next step is the presidential ballot, finally handling the combined Legislative Yuan and local elections on the same day. This would be a testable path.

Each stage should pre-publish measurement methods: application success rates, duplicate list interceptions, ballot errors, queue times, workforce, appeals, and recount cases. After the pilot, the CEC, local election commissions, political parties, disability groups, and Indigenous groups jointly review, allowing supporters and opponents to debate using the same set of data.

The applicable subjects will change the entire operation. If limited to specific professions, the government must verify who is truly working elsewhere. If open to all domestic voters to apply, the workload increases, but the fairness standard is simpler. The Executive Yuan's national referendum draft adopts the latter, and the CEC also believes that referendum transfer voting should not set further identity conditions. ¹⁷

This path does not guarantee reform will definitely succeed, but it replaces abstract fear with observable processes, and political slogans with versions that can be corrected. Democratic systems are rarely written perfectly in one go; the important thing is that failures can be seen, and repairs can be completed before the next election.

Beyond Voting for Home, What Should Taiwan Choose

Extra train services at stations, family group chats asking when one will arrive home, schools and activity centers turning into democratic sites in one day—this is the familiar rhythm of returning home to vote in Taiwan. This ritual has costs, and also carries the trust accumulated from paper ballots, public vote counting, and neighborhood supervision.

Absentee voting must find those left outside the door by the threshold of returning home, while ensuring that after they enter, everyone still believes the ballot has not been distorted on the way. Moving the existing ritual directly online cannot answer these two things.

Taiwan has already pushed open a narrow crack. Work-location voting for polling station staff, the new Indigenous voting system, and the referendum transfer voting draft are all measuring the same distance. Next, we must ask not only if a ballot can save hundreds of kilometers, but also if the system is willing to walk every supervised step further for that ballot.

Further Reading

• History of Voting Rights Thresholds: How age, household registration, and identity draw the boundaries of Taiwan's voting rights
• Election Process: From claiming ballots to public vote counting, how the current system operates
• CEC System: Who is responsible for designing and executing these election processes

References