Observations of the Penghu referendum

The Penghu casino referendum was held on Saturday. I went to observe the referendum as part of the team organised by Citizen Congress Watch (公民監督國會聯盟). I’ll first report on the observation of the referendum voting followed by some analysis of the results of the referendum and its political implications.

The observation team was split into five groups to observe the voting in different districts of Penghu. I went with Professor Yeh Chih-kuei to observe the voting in Baisha Township (白沙鄉). Between 7:30am to 4:45pm we observed six different polling booths.

The photo above shows an early voter waiting for voting to start. A single police officer was assigned to watch over each polling booth. Only voters and officials were permitted to enter the polling booth while voting was in progress. At all of the polling booths we visited there was a clear view of everything from the door. Everybody seemed quite comfortable with us standing near the door and observing proceedings. A few people asked us about what we were doing out of curiosity.

Photography and video recording is prohibited within 30 metres of a polling station during the voting period from 8:00am to 4:00pm. All the photos here were taken before and after the the voting period. In practice the media is allowed to do some recording while voting is in progress. A crew from PTS accompanied us and while they were permitted to record at one polling booth, another one didn’t allow them to do any recording.

Political lessons from Penghu

For the past week I have been involved in various activities of the Anti-gambling Alliance (反賭博合法化聯盟) in their campaign against the plan for a casino on Penghu (澎湖). The residents of Penghu will vote in a referendum on 26 September that will decide whether plans for the casino will be approved. If the referendum passes and a casino is built it will be Taiwan’s first casino. At present the lottery is the only form of legalised gambling in Taiwan.

On Tuesday 19 September there was an international press conference in Taipei. Representatives of various NGOs including the Life Conservation Association, Green Party, Citizen Congress Watch and Taiwan Environmental Protection Union all spoke out against the plan for a casino and the referendum. They also mentioned that the referendum was illegal and unconstitutional as there was no minimum threshold for the referendum to pass. This is in contrast to national referendums where the threshold is set at a very high level.

Dr Tim Kelly who was the executive director of the US Congressional National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC) was specially invited to Taiwan to share his experience. The NGISC report is the most comprehensive and authoritative report economic and social costs and benefits of legalized gambling anywhere in the world. A key point that Dr Kelly emphasised was the need for a comprehensive analysis of the costs and benefits of a casino on Taiwan before any casino is built in Taiwan. A summary of Dr Kelly’s key points on how the report applies to Taiwan can be found here.

The press conference received good media coverage. Check the report in the Taipei Times and Max Hirsch’s excellent article published on Gambling Compliance. Video news reports are available from FTV News and PeoPo.org.