Electoral system for national legislature

Taiwan’s Constitution of 1947 with Amendments through 2005 (The Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China)

Article 4

Beginning with the Seventh Legislative Yuan, the Legislative Yuan shall have 113 members, who shall serve a term of four years, which is renewable after re-election. The election of members of the Legislative Yuan shall be completed within three months prior to the expiration of each term, in accordance with the following provisions, the restrictions in Article 64 and Article 65 of the Constitution notwithstanding:

1. Seventy-three members shall be elected from the Special Municipalities, counties, and cities in the free area. At least one member shall be elected from each county and city.
2. Three members each shall be elected from among the lowland and highland aborigines in the free area.
3. A total of thirty-four members shall be elected from the nationwide constituency and among citizens residing abroad.

Members for the seats set forth in Subparagraph 1 of the preceding paragraph shall be elected in proportion to the population of each Special Municipality, county, or city, which shall be divided into electoral constituencies equal in number to the number of members to be elected. Members for the seats set forth in Subparagraph 3 shall be elected from the lists of political parties in proportion to the number of votes won by each party that obtains at least 5 percent of the total vote, and the number of elected female members on each party's list shall not be less than one-half of the total number.

In 2005, Taiwan changed its electoral system from the SNTV + List PR system to a 3-tiered combination of single member district (SMD) plurality rule, list PR, and the old SNTV system. One of the main reasons for its reform was cited to be the SNTV system’s tendency to undermine the coherence and effectiveness of political parties.

Under the new system, there are 113 seats available, where 73 are elected from SMDs and 34 by closed-list PR. The last 6 seats are left for six aboriginal representatives elected from two three-member districts using the old SNTV system.