We are now three weeks away from the referendum votes, and the battle lines in the campaigns are now pretty well established. I’d like to offer some general thoughts about the process in general and some on the individual items.
Referendum #19 is a good place to start since it deals with the institutional question of how to conduct referendums.[1] This item will allow referendums to be held on the same day as general elections.
I’m on the record as being against referendums in general. I think they are a lousy way to make public policy. There are two fundamental problems. First, referendums invite voters to consider issues in isolation without thinking about possible tradeoffs. However, very few decisions are isolated. Almost everything affects something else, and tradeoffs are unavoidable. If you don’t consider the full array of tradeoffs, you are going to make some lousy choices. Second, referendums place a high burden on voters to become educated. When the question is about a highly technical question, it is unrealistic to expect all voters to read technical reports and academic papers. It is simply unreasonable to demand that voters become experts in every policy area. Without sufficient information, even educated and sophisticated voters are prone to manipulation and making ill-advised choices. Unfortunately, there isn’t much support for eliminating referendums altogether. Nevertheless, I’ll come back to these flaws in my subsequent discussion.
This round of referendums is a new experience for Taiwan. We’ve had referendums in the past, but they have always been conducted at the same time as a larger election. In fact, that has usually been the point. Starting with Chen Shui-bian, parties have used referendums to mobilize sets of voters that they were worried might not otherwise turn out or be energetic enough. Prior to lowering the threshold in 2017, there was no hope of passing the referendum. The entire purpose was to create another talking point to whip your supporters into a frenzy to maximize turnout in the general election, which is what the politicians (and most of the people promoting the referendum) really cared about. The 2017 reform changed these calculations a bit by making it very easy to put a question on the ballot and making it possible to actually pass that item. In 2018, there was a flood of items trying to get on the ballot. More than 50 items started the process, ten actually got on the ballot, and seven actually passed. It was a clear signal that a powerful tool had been unleashed. If nothing had changed, we would have seen an even larger flood of referendums in the next general election. Of course, we all know that the 2018 election was an administrative disaster. The referendums led to long lines and chaotic polling stations, with many people waiting three hours, as people slowly tried to figure out how to vote on each of the measures. To avoid a repeat, the law was changed in 2019 to conduct referendums separately from general elections. There was some uncertainty about how this would affect political calculations. Most importantly, many people speculated that the turnout in a referendum-only election wouldn’t be high enough, so items wouldn’t easily pass. This probably discouraged quite a few groups from launching ballot initiatives this time. Only four items qualified. However, it won’t discourage them in the future. What we have learned this time is that the threshold is so low that the main parties have to assume turnout will be high enough. As a result, the parties have conducted energetic campaigns, which ensures turnout will be high enough. In other words, future activists will have every incentive to put their pet cause on the ballot. We will probably be flooded with referendums in the future, regardless of whether R19 passes. If the law isn’t further revised, I think we should probably expect 25 next time, give or take a dozen.
To me, the critical question is whether the system will work better if those 25 referendums are held jointly with a general election or on a separate day by themselves. So far, the only arguments for the same day are that turnout will be higher (and higher turnout is always better), voters who don’t live near their household registration only need to make one trip home, and it is cheaper to administer one election than two. Personally, I don’t find any of these very compelling. Voting once a year is not an unreasonable burden on citizens, and people who don’t care enough about the referendums to turn out probably aren’t informed enough to make very good choices. As for the costs, democracy costs money. When you skimp on administrative costs, you usually get low-quality democracy. Anyway, if you have 25 referendums with your general election, the lesson of 2018 is that you need a lot more polling stations and polling workers. You won’t be saving as much as you might think.
I think there is a very good reason for holding referendums separately, though it hasn’t been anyone’s main talking point. The process this year has been markedly better than it was in 2018. By that, I mean that the public debate has focused on these four items, and voters have much more information about the choices.
Think back to 2018. A month before the election, what was everyone thinking about? We weren’t talking about the referendums at all. The TV coverage was all about Han Kuo-yu and the possibility of a Han wave. If you were watching blue media, you got 17 hours of Han Kuo-yu a day with a bit of weather, sports, and traffic accidents on the side. If you weren’t thinking about Han Kuo-yu, you might have been thinking about your local candidates. But there was very little in-depth discussion of the ten referendums. Can you remember ever having a substantive discussion about education and homosexuality, the importance of Clause 95 in the Electricity Act, or whether reducing the output of power plants by 1% a year was good public policy? I certainly didn’t, and I consider myself to be a fairly well-informed person. Almost everyone was focused on the mayoral races. This is how all those long lines were produced. Almost all voters knew which mayoral candidate they supported – that’s why they were there. And they mostly knew about their local city council and neighborhood head candidates. Those votes didn’t take very long. But then they had ten other votes to think about, and many people hadn’t really thought very much about them. So in the voting booth, they had to read each (confusing) question, think about it, and come up with an answer. Everything ground to a halt. If it takes ten minutes for each voter to complete their votes, the lines are going to back up pretty quickly.
Now compare that experience to this year. There are not mayoral candidates to dominate our attention. All the discussion has been on the four referendums. We have learned all the main talking points, as the politicians have guided us in the best ways to think about each question. We have had to think about tradeoffs. When one side has raised the costs of a decision, the other side has generally denied that there is, in fact, a serious tradeoff. But at least voters have been exposed to this debate. Some of the debates have been better than others, but all of them have been more substantial than any of the 2018 referendum debates. And when it is time to vote, every voter will go to the polls with an idea of how they want to vote on these four items. That is, after all, why they are going to vote this year. Election administration should be much, much smoother.
There is no question in my mind that holding referendums separately from general elections has created a better referendum system. This doesn’t make it a good system, but at least it isn’t quite as terrible.
Ironically, the debate over R19 has arguably featured the worst quality of the four items. Instead of talking about how referendums work better, both sides have spent most of their energy calling the other side an unprincipled, insincere, anti-democratic flip-flopper. The typical attack is something like, a decade ago they said this, but now they say the opposite. Were they lying then, or have they abandoned their principles now? Both sides have used this heavily; the KMT has used it almost exclusively. One of their debaters dressed up as Lin Yi-hsiung 林義雄, and they have all discovered a reverence for Tsai Trong 蔡同榮. Another one even quoted Chen Shui-bian (who the KMT has always held in the highest esteem!). It’s a very cynical game of gotcha. Look at how insincere the DPP is! They’ll say anything! Their elders would be appalled at how the current party has utterly betrayed its ideals! Now they’re even trying to take away your right to a referendum! I think the main purpose is simply to criticize the DPP, but this might also have a strategic purpose. They need to win a majority, and the KMT doesn’t have a lot of credibility on referendums, especially with DPP-leaning voters. They might think that reminding voters of those DPP elders’ campaigns for referendums will persuade some people to vote “yes” out of fondness for those old guys even if it means voting with the KMT. They have tried to argue that the constitution guarantees the right of referendums based on Sun Yat-sen’s ideas,[2] but that isn’t very persuasive. After all, the KMT spent six decades trying to not to honor that pledge.
It might work, because the DPP isn’t mounting a very powerful argument either. The DPP has been trying to argue that they have always been the party of referendums, and the KMT has always opposed them. (Look at what they said twenty years ago!) Now they have to argue that they are protecting referendums by separating them from general elections (Look at all the chaos it caused in 2018!). I’m not convinced all of them believe themselves. They have been arguing that more referendums are better for so long, and some of them just seem uncomfortable with the nuanced argument that is required now. It is much easier to argue simply that the DPP has always been the party for referendums, and the KMT has always been against them, and so the voters should trust the DPP to make the right choices on referendums. In the third debate, the DPP speaker spent as much of his time on the other three items as on R19.
The debate on R20 has been much more informative. The government is planning to build a facility to unload liquid natural gas (LNG) on the Taoyuan coast so that it can run a new power plant. Taoyuan is the most industrialized region in Taiwan, and the nearby Hsinchu science park also consumes large amounts of electricity. The plan is to generate power locally with LNG so that the coal-burning plants in Taichung and Kaohsiung can cut back their emissions. Air quality is a major political issue in Taichung. This is also part of the plan to retire the aging three nuclear power plants. The problem is that there is a coral reef on the Taoyuan coast, and environmental activists fear the LNG project would destroy or severely damage the reef. Their proposal is to move the LNG unloading facility elsewhere. The government has dismissed this as unrealistic. It has also argued that the original plan has been dramatically modified in order to ensure that the reef will not be damaged.
This referendum was proposed as a simple environmental measure: save the reef. However, through the various rounds of debates, we have learned a lot about the potential tradeoffs involved. Both sides argue that we need to worry about climate change, though they have different angles on how to do that. The government has stressed the impact this will have on air quality in other areas, since stopping an LNG project here inevitably means more coal elsewhere. They have also talked about whether this is a development vs environment problem or merely a tradeoff between different environmental values. And of course, the impact on TSMC has been raised, since Taiwan can’t do anything these days without talking about semiconductors.
This has largely been a sincere and respectful debate. Both sides seem to sincerely believe in their position, and they seem to have been trying to honestly present solid scientific evidence in their favor. They don’t always agree about which evidence is more important or even about the meaning of that evidence, but they don’t seem to be trying to willfully manipulate voters.
Can I follow their debate? Not very well. I don’t have a PhD in environmental studies, civil engineering, marine biology, oceanography, or climate change. The studies they are citing are well beyond my capacity. When they say the project would have a devastating impact or very little impact, I don’t have any idea how I’m supposed to judge which conclusion is more authoritative. I’m much more informed about the choice than I was a month ago, but I don’t think I’m remotely qualified yet to make a good decision. Unfortunately, I suspect most voters will make their choices based on even less information than I have right now. At least I watched all three of the hourlong debates on R20. I’m guessing that puts me in the top 10%. R20 is the best of the four information campaigns, and it is still inadequate. This decision will be based on emotions, not science.
R17 has been much worse in every way. R17 proposes restarting work on the 4th nuclear power plant. 4NPP has been Taiwan’s nightmare for three decades, and they finally sealed the plant in 2014 after wasting massive amounts of money on what turned out to be a Frankenstein project that (thankfully) never started operations. I don’t know if I am for or against nuclear power in the abstract, but 4NPP is a horrifying rusted-out jerry-rigged monstrosity that is nowhere near operational. Regardless of this referendum result, it isn’t ever going to open. The entire referendum is an exercise in cynicism.
I’m fairly confident this one won’t pass. Several weeks ago, the referendum campaign kicked off when two prominent KMT members, New Taipei mayor Hou You-yi and Ilan County magistrate Lin Tzu-miao, said they were against it. Then the KMT decided it wasn’t really responsible for this referendum, so members were free to vote against it. A few other KMT members have since joined in, though the top leadership remains sympathetic.
R17 has become synonymous with one person. Huang Shi-hsiu 黃士修 is the sponsor and the voice. Each referendum has now had three public debates. Everyone else has used three different people for the three debates. Only Huang has represented his side each time. He becomes nastier, less likeable, and less credible each time. Unlike the R20 debate, this has not been an honest, sincere exchange. We only see bad faith.
Huang speaks fast, throwing facts out left and right. It seems to me that he might not always be careful with his research. He gives the impression of someone who scans papers for lines he might use, regardless of what the rest of the paper says. Several times during the debates, his opponent has said something to the effect of “you seem to have misunderstood that part.” They clearly believe it is willful misuse.
The worst moment came in the second debate, in which Huang faced off against a former employee of Taipower who had been involved in several safety inspections. As Huang finished his opening statement, he warned his opponent to be careful with his words. If Huang detected any lies, he and his team of lawyers would sue. Be careful! His opponent had not yet said a word, mind you. In the second section, Huang repeatedly pointed to reports the guy had signed and accused him of making false statements. In the third debate, he gleefully reported that he had, in fact, brought a lawsuit. Let’s just say that I don’t consider bullying and intimidation hallmarks of a good faith debate.
In the third debate, he proudly admitted to sending reporters materials with the wrong dates on them. This was, he explained, a brilliant trap that he had set for them. (I didn’t follow his logic.) Now, he was revealing his cunning scheme. See how smart he is! (Oh yeah, a few reporters caught the error before he corrected it.) So, we are supposed to trust this guy who is deliberately sending out false evidence because he thinks you are too stupid to notice?? What a creep!
There are some reports that he is connected to Chang Ya-chung, the pro-unification radical who just lost the KMT party chair election. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me at all. I think he is aiming for a city council seat or a political talk show on CiTV. Or maybe he will just specialize in referendums. He sponsored one in 2018 (R16, dealing with the Electricity Act). With no one paying much attention, that one passed. He seems destined to be an onerous troll for years to come.
Most of the debates have had Huang saying things like 4NPP has passed many safety tests, nuclear waste storage is not a problem, and there are more active faults in central Taiwan than in northern Taiwan so earthquakes are not a problem. His opponents have refuted all these claims and pointed out that 4NPP couldn’t possibly come online for at least another decade.
R17 has been a miserable experience.
That leaves us with R18, the pork referendum. Overall, I think the debate on pork has been pretty informative. There have been plenty of cheap shots and irrelevant tangents, but we have gotten a fairly good depiction of the question at hand. The main considerations are:
- How safe is ractopamine?
- How much does the USA care? Will this affect relations with the USA?
- Will this affect TIFA and/or CPTPP?
- Does Taiwan have an obligation to follow international standards?
The KMT wants to argue that ractopamine is unsafe, and that is the only thing that matters. Those other concerns are wildly exaggerated. The DPP argues that ractopamine is mostly safe, and those other concerns are extremely important.
Unlike R20, which involves extremely technical considerations, the pork debate is relatively easy to follow. I don’t understand the chemistry or biology of ractopamine, but I can understand pork chops. 33 pork chops every day for five years or six bowls of pork liver soup a day for five years would be too much. In many ways, it is harder to understand the effect this would have on international trade. Many voters will see this as a “he said, she said” situation. However, it is relatively easy to follow the logic of how it might matter. The tradeoff is clear to see if the voters are willing to see it.
I’m not going to make any predictions about how this will turn out. We haven’t had much polling, and what we do have is either extremely low quality or too long ago to reflect the effects of the campaign. I’m waiting anxiously for the monthly My-Formosa poll which should come out in the next few days and provide a much better picture of where we are.
[1] Ok, it’s a good place to start because I am a political scientist who studies political institutions. For everyone else, this seems to be the least interesting of the four referendums.
[2] I wonder how many of them have actually read SYS on referendums. His justification was that democratic government works like a piston. Elections push the piston out, and referendums push the piston back in. There’s are reason no one outside the KMT church considers SYS a genius political philosopher.
Frozen Garlic 