Taiwan Election Study Trip

Cady Deck, Certificate ‘19 + SAIS MA ’20, shares her experience participating in the Taiwan Election Study Trip sponsored by SAIS and the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Students visited the Election Counting and Information Center in Taipei as votes were reported

Every four years SAIS sends a group of 12 students to Taiwan to watch and analyze the presidential elections. This year, I was one of the 12 students who participated in the action-packed week of meetings, campaign rallies, and watch parties. Almost half of us were current or former Hopkins-Nanjing Center students and an additional few were Tsinghua-SAIS dual degree students. I didn’t think I would have an opportunity to go back to Asia so soon after leaving the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, but I was wrong. I applied immediately!

One SAIS class in particular sparked my interest in Taiwan’s 2020 elections. Last semester I took Professor David Keegan’s class called “The Turbulent Triangle: Taiwan, China, and the United States” to learn more about how Taiwan plays into the US-China policy nexus. Throughout the semester we learned about cross-strait relations, which included more general policy trends from administration to administration, as well as specific issues such as the US’s “derecognition” of Taiwan, Taiwanese identity, and democratic consolidation. The most important question on everyone’s mind as we discussed these issues was how they would affect the upcoming election. We spent 10 to 15 minutes at the end of each class sharing news updates on the election, looking at public opinion polls, and speculating about how world events could impact the election.

Spending time in Taiwan the week leading up to the election was particularly helpful as it provided insight on a semester’s worth of questions. Below is a list of some of the places we visited:

• American Institute in Taiwan
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Mainland Affairs Council
• Democratic People's Party Taipei Office
• Kuomingtang Party Legislative Yuan Representative
• Taiwanese Statebuilding Party Taichung Branch
• New Power Party
• Election Counting and Information Center

Students visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan Statebuilding Party, New Power Party, Mainland Affairs Council, Kuomingtang Party, and Democratic People's Party, in addition to several other places.

In addition to the meetings with academics, pollsters, and political parties, we also had the opportunity to attend the final KMT and DPP rallies before the election. As luck would have it, the rallies took place on the street directly across from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This meant we had front row seats to both rallies. The rallies were an excellent way to gauge crowd enthusiasm and learn more about party platforms. Perhaps even more interesting were the similarities and differences between the tactics both parties used to energize the crowd, as well as the characteristics of the people attending each rally.

Fun fact: A common chant at both of the rallies was a call and response chant that went like this: the announcers would shout the candidate's name and the supporters would shout "冻蒜!" (dòng suàn). This call and response would happen three times and then the announcers would shout the candidate's name three times and the supporters would then respond by shouting "冻蒜，冻蒜，冻蒜!" 冻蒜 (dòng suàn) translates to "frozen garlic" but sounds like 当选 (dāng xuǎn) in the Min'nan dialect, which is the verb "be elected."

The top two photos are from the KMT rally. The bottom two photos are from the DPP rally.

My favorite part of the trip was when we visited a local polling station on Election Day. We watched people cast their 3 ballots for president/vice president, their legislative yuan representative, and the party list. After the polls closed, we stayed to watch the vote count. Unlike in the US where votes are counted secretly and then announced, vote counting in Taiwan is open to the public. Citizens can even contest ballots and ask for clarification on why a ballot is counted a certain way. During our brief visit, several people raised questions about specific ballots. When this happened, the volunteers would stop counting ballots and someone would come over and explain why the ballot was declared valid or invalid. Then they would resume counting.

The pink ballot is for the president and vice president. The yellow ballot is for the legislative yuan representatives. On the right is a Taiwanese citizen watching the vote being counted.

This poster, showing examples of ballots that count (有效票) and ballots that are invalid (无效票), was posted in the back of every room

Polling station volunteers unsealed the boxes of ballots and began to count votes. The ballot boxes for the legislative yuan representative and president/vice president were opened first. A person at each box would hold up and announce a ballot, and then a person standing behind them would repeat the response as they marked it down on a page stuck to the whiteboard in the back. After the column filled up, they would tape another piece of paper over the column and start again.

In the video above, the male volunteer is calling out the ballot results for the president/vice president ticket. Simultaneously, the female volunteer is announcing votes for the legislative yuan. In addition to announcing the candidates, they also each shout out a number that corresponds to the candidate. This number is the ballot position candidates are arbitrarily assigned. For example, Tsai Yingwen was number 3 or "三号" (sān hào).

The day after the election, we attended a panel discussion about the results and their implications for Taiwan’s future. This was a great way to wrap up the week and hear from academics about their opinions on the election. It was especially interesting because we also heard from several academics whose papers we read in Professor Keegan’s class.

Spending time in Taiwan is always exciting and this experience was unforgettable. I learned a lot and returned with a much better understanding of the election system in Taiwan. Students should keep an eye out for these unique opportunities in the future!

Written by Cady Deck, Certificate '19 + Johns Hopkins SAIS MA '20