Almost 4.96 million votes, will need to be cast in favor of each of the four referendums this weekend if they are to pass, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said Tuesday.
Based on the Referendum Act, one quarter of Taiwan's 19,825,468 eligible voters, meaning those who turned 18 before Aug. 28, must vote "yes" in a given referendum in order for it to be ratified.
By administrative area, New Taipei has the largest number of eligible voters at 3,427,162, followed by 2,353,773 in Kaohsiung, 2,337,667 in Taichung, while Taipei, Taiwan's capital, has 2,155,416 eligible voters, the CEC said in a statement.
Saturday's referendums are the first to be held independent of central or local government elections, following an amendment to the Referendum Act in 2019 that barred the holding of referendums on the same day as national elections.
One of the questions in the upcoming referendum seeks to revoke the amendment so that referendums could again be held concurrently with such elections.
According to the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), the initiator of the referendum on election dates, such a move would decrease costs and increase voter turnout.
The other three questions are on halting construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal (LNG) near an algal reef, banning the import of pork containing traces of the livestock drug ractopamine, and unsealing the long-mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel