Landslide victory for DPP sets records for democratic elections in Taiwan

Today’s Presidential and legislative elections saw a major victory for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, and President Tsai Ing-wen, seeing records broken for voter turnout, and total votes for a President.

Many districts saw record voter turnouts as young people in particular, traditionally considered complacent when in comes to voting, made efforts to return to their hometowns to place a vote. Taiwan does not allow absentee voting, and people are generally registered to vote at their parent’s residence until they purchase a home or start a family of their own.

In Taichung City, the municipal election committee reported a turnout rate of 76.37%, a record high that exceeded the 68.37% rate seen at the 2016 Presidential election, according to United Daily News.

Incumbent President Tsai trounced her Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) opponent Han Kuo-yu by more than 2.5 million votes, gaining a total of more than 8.15 million votes (57.2%) compared to Han’s 5.5 million (38.6%).

The previous record for total number of votes for president stood at 7.6 million after the election of the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou in 2008.

As for the Legislative Yuan, the Democratic Progressive Party won 48 seats, compared to the KMT’s 23.

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