VZCZCXRO1485
PP RUEHCN RUEHGH
DE RUEHIN #2346 2900709
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 170709Z OCT 07
FM AIT TAIPEI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7164
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 7367
RUEHGH/AMCONSUL SHANGHAI 1423
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 2157
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG 6131
RUEHGZ/AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU 0608
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 8648

UNCLAS TAIPEI 002346 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AIT/W, EAP/TC, INR/EAP 
 
FROM AIT KAOHSIUNG BRANCH OFFICE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV TW
SUBJECT: The Changing Face of Voter Manipulation and Under-the-table 
Campaigning in Legislative Elections 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary.  Southerners have differing expectations of the 
impact the new "single-member district, two-vote" election system 
will have on Taiwan politics when it commences in the January 2007 
Legislative Yuan (LY) elections.  One political leader told AIT/K 
that he believes it will make election manipulation more difficult. 
A political analyst disagreed, arguing the new system will merely 
increase the sophistication of vote-buying and other manipulation 
techniques.  End Summary. 
 
Voter Manipulation Could Disappear 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In a recent meeting with AIT/K, Pingtung County Vice 
Magistrate Chung Chia-bing explained that in previous "multi-seat 
district" LY elections, party workers manipulated votes through 
under-the-table voter allocation agreements (pei-piao) in order to 
get as many of their candidates elected as possible.  Previously, 
party operatives worked via informal channels to spread votes evenly 
among multiple party candidates by telling their supporters to vote 
for different party candidates in the same district.  In some cases, 
family members in a household would split their votes within their 
extended family to help their preferred party elect candidates who 
might otherwise lack enough local support to win an election.  In 
this election system, vote-buying served as a motivating tool to 
convince party supporters to divide and allocate their votes to 
ensure the election of multiple party members in each district. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Chung surmised that under the new legislative election 
system in which only one candidate will be elected in each district, 
voters will likely shift to strict party line voting patterns. 
Under the new electoral system there will be little incentive or 
need to buy votes, or "pei-piao," since each party has only one 
candidate running in an each district's LY election.  Despite the 
simplified new electoral system, Chung argued that public opinion 
polling may no longer be reliable because increasing numbers of 
voters refuse to respond accurately or at all to survey phone calls. 
 With inadequate samples, the public opinion polls will likely 
remain as inaccurate as ever, he concluded. 
 
Or Maybe Not:  Campaigning With "Futures" 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) On the other hand, National Chung Cheng University Prof. 
Soong Hseik-wen told AIT/K that competition in the reduced-seat 
legislative elections is so fierce that efforts to mobilize voters 
would go deeper into the grassroots electorate.  Prof. Soong 
explained that in Chiayi County, DPP candidates often work with DPP 
county magistrates to hold meetings with local businessmen and 
professional leaders to elicit their support.  In these meetings, 
candidates typically request campaign support in exchange for 
promises to award bids in future projects and land transactions 
after land rezoning.  This wheeling-dealing serves as both a means 
to solicit campaign finance contributions and a way to deliver votes 
by these people to safeguard their interests.  Explaining that this 
kind of campaigning is very effective, Prof. Soong surmised that, 
with so much at stake in the new single-member districts, the 
phenomenon will increase in the upcoming January 2007 legislative 
election campaign.  It is difficult, Soong concluded, for legal 
authorities to monitor this type of campaign tactic. 
 
 
Thiele 
 
Wang