NO CONSENSUS:Lawmakers failed to agree on major issues, including whether the proposed constitutional changes should be passed as one bill or voted on individually

Taipei Times
Date:  Jun 09, 2015
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

The legislature’s Constitution Amendment Committee yesterday resolved to take several high-profile bills, including proposals to lower the legal voting age and the threshold for parties to secure legislator-at-large seats, as well as those on reinstating the legislature’s right to vote on a premier and introduce absentee voting, to a plenary session for discussion.

Legislators agreed that the proposals, previously bound together in a package by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), would be discussed individually at the plenary session.

With yesterday being the deadline for reviewing the bills, the decision was made after legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the KMT failed to reach a consensus on the majority of issues discussed during the current legislative session.

KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said the KMT supports implementing absentee voting so that people working far from home would not have to travel to vote.

Referring to a bill on lowering the legal voting age, from 20 to 18, Wang said that the two bills should be passed in tandem, as both aim to boost civic participation.     [FULL  STORY]