It Is Time to Implement "Absentee Voting" for Prisoners

Image source / mohamed_hassan

In addition to altering people's daily habits, this wave of the COVID-19 pandemic should prompt a democratic nation like Taiwan to seriously consider how to implement "absentee voting."

"Absentee voting" refers to alternative avenues provided by the government for voters who are unable to cast their ballots in person at polling stations due to various reasons. As countries around the world sever transportation links with one another due to the pandemic, the establishment and implementation of this system have become both necessary and urgent.

Whether for elections or recalls, deciding matters through voting is the very foundation of legitimacy for a democratic government. Given how far technology has evolved today, there are dozens of options for remote video conferencing alone (setting aside backend control and cybersecurity concerns). Furthermore, shareholders' meetings in our country now also adopt online voting methods. Therefore, the implementation of absentee voting is indeed one of the policies that modern democratic countries should most actively promote, considering people's convenience and the protection of their constitutional rights to vote, political participation, and freedom of expression.

Among those long overlooked in discussions of "absentee voting" are prisoners inside correctional facilities. Although deprived of their freedom, prisoners remain citizens of our country, and their relevant rights should still be protected. Currently, no law in our country restricts any prisoner's eligibility to exercise their right to vote, let alone those defendants who are detained awaiting trial.

Take, for example, the Kaohsiung mayoral recall vote held in Kaohsiung on Saturday, June 6, 2020. If the voting rights of prisoners registered in Kaohsiung who are inside Kaohsiung prisons, as well as Kaohsiung natives in other prisons, are not accommodated, it would, first, run counter to the Constitution's intent to protect the right to vote and the aforementioned related rights, and second, risk being criticized by individuals with ulterior motives for failing to reflect the true public will under that vote.

The operational rigidity of past legal systems (for example, requiring the voter registry to be compiled 20 days before the election based on household registration data from that day) was due to the lack of computer assistance for large-scale data processing when the legislation was enacted (1980). We must ask: today, compiling the registry is surely much more convenient; is there still any doubt about whether we need to rigidly adhere to outdated rules? How can the deprivation of constitutional rights be brushed aside with the mere excuse that it is "difficult to implement"?

Judging from our country's pandemic response, it is evident that our government's administrative mobilization and reaction speed far surpass those of other advanced Western nations. If countries like Japan, Canada, Spain, Poland, and Germany can enable their prisoners to vote in correctional facilities, why is it impossible or difficult to implement in our country? Fundamentally, it is simply a matter of whether there is the political will to do it.

The book Gung Ho! points out that the spirit of gung ho lies in achieving group goals through "the spirit of the squirrel, the way of the beaver, and the gift of the goose." The spirit of the squirrel is about valuing everyone's work; the way of the beaver is about controlling the process to achieve the goal; and the gift of the goose lies in utilizing the art of encouragement to inspire team morale and forge ahead!

In a healthy society, everyone's opinion is equally important. Even if prisoners are serving time due to offenses, they are ultimately undergoing the punishment they deserve within correctional facilities. Their constitutional or legal rights should not be further stripped away, which is the only way to truly allow Taiwan's land and our society as a whole to achieve gung ho.

※ This article was published in the Apple Daily on April 29, 2020