Change and Continuity in the Personal Vote after Electoral Reform in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan`s new mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system should promote far lower levels of personal voting than its old single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system. Since personal voles are conventionally contrasted with party votes, this should lead to more partisan politics. However; I argue that personal voles must be disaggregated into two distinct types. Intra-party personal voters favor a particular party and simply pick one candidate over other party nominees. Extra-party personal voters do not like the party, and pick the candidate despite his or her party affiliation. In this paper; I argue that Taiwan`s electoral reform has reduced overall personal voting by eliminating intra-party personal votes. However; there are clear continuities in extra-party personal votes. One implication of this is that Taiwan should expect less, not more, partisan politics in its future.