Kaohsiung council race may be uncontested in one district, but one vote will not guarantee victory

Kaohsiung’s sixth council district may see the city’s first uncontested council election, with four incumbent candidates registered for four seats and no challengers reported by the latest count.

The district covers Cijin, Gushan and Yancheng. The four incumbents are Li Qiaoru, Jian Huanzong, Cai Jinyan and Chen Meiya. Local observers consider an uncontested race highly likely because of the incumbents’ strong electoral positions.

But the Election Commission warned that uncontested does not mean automatic victory. Village chiefs can win an uncontested race with one vote, while city councilors and other local representatives must still pass a minimum vote threshold under Article 70 of Taiwan’s Public Officials Election and Recall Act.

The threshold is calculated by dividing the district’s total number of electors by the number of seats, then taking 10 percent of the result. In the sixth district, the 2022 electorate totaled 153,513 and the district had four seats. That calculation produced a minimum of 3,837 votes.

Local figures joked that the four incumbents could begin planning long holidays or even trips abroad if the race remained uncontested. One councilor, after learning that a minimum threshold still applied, joked that the candidates could not leave the country after all, because failing to win even an uncontested election would be embarrassing.

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This means we cannot go abroad after all. It would be embarrassing not to win even an uncontested election