Taiwan's Referendum System: Written into the Constitution in 1947, Took 56 Years to Get a Law

30-second overview: On November 28, 2026, Taiwan will elect 11,051 local officials while casting a referendum ballot. After the Central Election Commission reviewed three referendum proposals submitted by the Legislative Yuan, only "Abolish the Non-Nuclear Home Policy" qualified, numbered Case 22. Commission Chair Yu Ying-lung estimates that if bundled with the general election, vote counting will run until 2 a.m. the next day. This system traces from the Constitution's 1947 provisions on "initiative and referendum," the Citizen Referendum Act enacted in 2003, ten cases bundled with the general election in 2018, separation in 2019, and rebundling in 2025.

Keywords: referendum, Citizen Referendum Act, Central Election Commission, 2018 ten cases, referendum bundled with general election

The Ballot on November 28

The Central Election Commission announced the local official elections on August 20, 2026, setting the voting date for November 28 to elect 11,051 local officials across 8,906 electoral districts and 18,244 polling stations, with approximately 19.65 million eligible voters, including roughly 600,000 first-time voters.¹

Eight days later, the Central Election Commission held a committee meeting to review three referendum cases referred by the Legislative Yuan. Commission Chair Yu Ying-lung announced the results at a press conference: the "Abolish the Non-Nuclear Home Policy referendum" was approved, while the other two cases—"Corporal Punishment into Law" and "Traffic Fines Dedicated to Road Safety Improvement"—were rejected for failing to meet the Citizen Referendum Act's requirement of "major policy initiative or referendum."² By mid-October, this remained the only nationwide referendum to qualify in this term, numbered Case 22.³

Earlier that same day at another press conference, when asked what would happen if all three cases were bundled into the November 28 election, Yu Ying-lung estimated vote counting would run until 2 a.m. the next day.⁴ This statement has a ready comparison: on November 24, 2018, ten referendum cases were voted on simultaneously with local elections, and at many polling stations people were still queuing after voting hours ended, with vote counting dragging into the late night.⁵

The dilemma facing system designers is concentrated in the gap between these two scenes: too few cases and the referendum is said to lack legitimacy; too many cases and the electoral machinery breaks down. Taiwan has walked both ends of this line.

Those Two Words Written into the Constitution in 1947

The Republic of China Constitution, which took effect in 1947, states in Article 17 that the people have the rights of election, recall, initiative, and referendum. In other words, direct democracy was not something added to the constitutional level later—it was there from the beginning.⁶

But "written into the Constitution" and "having a clear path to follow" are two different things. How to propose initiative and referendum, how many signatures are needed, what the passage threshold is, and who reviews it all require a law to connect these elements. That law is the Citizen Referendum Act, which was enacted by the Legislative Yuan in December 2003.⁶ From the Constitution taking effect to the referendum law going into effect, 56 years passed.

One Law and Its First Real Test (2003)

The referendum law's first use came on March 20, 2004, when two cases were held on the same day as the presidential election: Case 1 "Strengthen National Defense" and Case 2 "Equal Negotiations," both proposed by the sitting president under the referendum law's defensive referendum provision.⁶ Both cases had over 90% approval votes, but with a 45% turnout, falling short of the then-required threshold of "half of all eligible voters," both failed to pass.⁶

Another round came in 2008 with four cases total: "Investigate Party Assets" and "Anti-Corruption" on January 12 alongside legislative elections, and "Taiwan Joins the United Nations" and "Pragmatic Return to the UN" on March 22 alongside the presidential election.⁶ All four cases had approval votes between 58% and 94%, with turnout between 26% and 36%, and all failed to pass.⁶

The problem in that decade lay in the shape of the threshold: it required both more than half of voters to participate and more than half of valid votes to approve, which meant a case had to simultaneously mobilize both supporters and opponents to vote. Subsequent amendments mainly addressed this double threshold.

Seven Changes in Lowering the Threshold (2017)

In December 2017, the Legislative Yuan passed amendments to the referendum law, completely restructuring this threshold.⁶ The seven main changes were:

• Proposal threshold lowered from 0.5% of total presidential election voters to 0.1%
• Signature threshold lowered from 5% to 1.5%
• Passage threshold lowered from half of all eligible voters to one-quarter, eliminating the original overall turnout requirement and replacing it with "valid approval votes reaching at least one-quarter of all eligible voters and exceeding disapproval votes"
• Referendum voting age lowered from 20 to 18
• Abolished the Referendum Review Committee with veto and determination powers, replaced by the Central Election Commission conducting formal review
• Added authorization for electronic signature verification codes
• Allowed nationwide referendums to use absentee voting, with implementation methods to be established by separate legislation

Two of these items have important caveats: although absentee voting was written into the law, the legislation for implementation methods was never enacted, so in practice voters still must return to their registered district to vote.⁶ Electronic signatures have also not been established, with signatures still relying on paper.⁶ These two issues resurface periodically because they determine one thing: how much time a supporter must invest to get their opinion onto that ballot.

The Night of Ten Cases Bundled with the General Election (2018)

The first major test after loosening the threshold came in 2018. This year saw the most nationwide referendum cases in Taiwan's history—ten cases (Cases 7 through 16)—voted on the same day as the nine-in-one local elections.⁶ Seven cases passed, covering issues including air pollution, coal-fired power generation, food imports from Japanese nuclear disaster areas, and three cases related to marriage and same-sex education. Two cases—"Rename Taiwan for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics" and "Protect Same-Sex Marriage through Civil Law"—failed to pass.⁶⁵

The scene on vote-counting night became a collective memory of that year: after voting hours ended, many polling stations still had people queuing to vote, and counting was dragged into the late night.⁵ With referendum and election ballots proceeding simultaneously and so many referendum cases, electoral capacity and voting flows were pushed to their limits on the same day.

The Year Referendums Separated from General Elections (2019)

In June 2019, the Legislative Yuan amended the referendum law again, explicitly stipulating that citizen referendums would no longer be held on the same day as nationwide elections, and would instead be held on the fourth Saturday of August every two years beginning in 2021.⁶ Supporters argued this would prevent polling stations from being overwhelmed by two types of ballots, and referendum issues would not be overshadowed by the competitive atmosphere of elections.

The first referendum after separation was held on December 18, 2021, with four cases: restart Nuclear Plant No. 4, oppose Ractopamine-treated pork, bundle referendums with general elections, and relocate the Third LNG Terminal. This was the second referendum after the 2017 threshold-lowering amendment and the first after the 2019 new referendum date, so it was not held simultaneously with any election.⁵ Notably, one case's subject was itself "bundle referendums with general elections," meaning voters were asked to take a position on whether this system should be bundled together.

Next came the 2022 constitutional amendment citizen referendum, with the subject of lowering the age of civic rights to 18. This type of referendum follows the constitutional amendment procedure rather than the referendum law, with signature and age thresholds set by the constitutional amendment itself, differing from ordinary referendums.⁶

Nuclear Plant No. 3, 29.53%, and the Pendulum (2025)

On August 23, 2025, Case 21 "Restart Nuclear Plant No. 3" was held. The turnout was 29.53%, the third-lowest in referendum voting history, with approval votes at 74.17%, but valid approval votes did not reach the threshold of one-quarter of all eligible voters, so it failed to pass.⁷ This case made very clear the shape of the threshold after the 2017 amendment: in a low-turnout situation, even with a high approval percentage, a case can still fail.

The pendulum swung back in November 2025: the Legislative Yuan passed amendments to the referendum law, changing the referendum voting date to "within three to six months after the referendum case is officially approved" and requiring it to be held together with nationwide elections during that period.⁸⁹ This essentially reconnected the 2019 separation design, only with the condition written as "merge if timing is close." After the president promulgated this amendment, the legal database shows the Citizen Referendum Act amendment date as December 3, 2025.¹⁰

Thus came the 2026 situation: on November 28 local elections day, Case 22 would be voted on together. When the Central Election Commission chair stated the vote-counting time estimate, the scene from that 2018 night was actually the origin of that number.⁴

Why This Line Is Worth Remembering

Looking at each debate laid out, Taiwan's referendum system has really been repeatedly weighing only three things.

On one end of the scale is the threshold: the problem with those six cases in 2004 and 2008 was that the threshold was too strict—votes were mobilized but failed to pass. After 2017 changed to the one-quarter system, the problem shifted to the other side: low turnout plus high approval percentage could still fail to pass, as Case 21 in 2025 demonstrated. The second end is electoral capacity: the year with ten cases on the same day pushed polling stations to their limit, leading to the 2019 separation; after separation, the heat of referendum discussion was questioned, leading to the 2025 rebundling. The third end is "whose opinion gets onto that ballot," which depends on whether signatures require paper and whether absentee voting is allowed, and both of these are still waiting for implementation legislation.⁶

None of these three things has ever been purely a technical problem—each time it has been recalculated on the political stage. And the traces left by the system are easy to recognize: which year was amended, which article was amended, what was the turnout, was the threshold one-quarter or one-half. Laying these numbers out by year shows how this island has been learning to use direct democracy while adjusting its own container.

Further Reading:

• Central Election Commission System — the agency that guides referendum cases from proposal and signature collection through voting
• History of Voting Rights Thresholds — the line determining who qualifies to enter a polling station has also been amended repeatedly
• [2026 Nine-in-One Elections](/politics/2026 九合一選舉) — the other half of the ballot on November 28

References