Court rejects polling booth in Taipei Prison on appeal

Taipei, Nov. 16 (CNA) The Supreme Administrative Court on Thursday overruled a lower court's ruling siding with an inmate and ordering the establishment of a voting booth inside Taipei Prison.

In a press release explaining the ruling, the court said citizens did not have the legal right to request electoral bodies to set up polling booths within prisons, and that the refusal to do so did not cause significant harm to the public good.

The Supreme Administrative Court's ruling cannot be appealed.

In the case in question, an inmate at the prison, surnamed Lin (林), requested the booth in order to exercise his right to vote in Taiwan's national elections in January 2024.

The case began when Lin submitted a request through the inmate rights group Prison Watch, asking the Central Election Commission (CEC) and Taoyuan City Election Commission (TCEC) to set up a polling booth at the prison, which despite its name, is actually located in Taoyuan's Guishan District, where Lin is currently serving time.

Lin argued that the installation of the booth falls within his rights as an eligible voter who is unable to leave his place of incarceration to cast a ballot.

In March of this year, the CEC and TCEC said that having inmates vote at designated locations in their prison's municipality fell under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, which neither commission is directly affiliated with.

Both the CEC and TCEC added that setting up a polling booth in a prison would fall under the purview of absentee ballots or separate voting locations, which they rejected as there is no clear precedent or regulations to accommodate such a request.

The TCEC recommended that Lin submit paperwork through the appropriate channels to be allowed to exit the prison to vote.

Following the rejection of his request, Lin filed a lawsuit with the Taipei High Administrative Court.

In a decision issued last month, the court sided with Lin, whom it said had not had his voting rights revoked despite his incarcerated status.

The court said the TCEC's recommendation that Lin could leave prison to vote was unsuitable, and that it would instead be more appropriate to install a voting booth in the prison to allow him to cast his ballot there.

As to the CEC and TCEC's argument that there are no regulations or precedents for setting up a polling booth in prison, the court found the lack of precedent an insufficient reason to deny a citizen their voting rights.

The ruling, which ordered the TCEC to set up a polling booth in Lin's prison or find a viable alternative, was appealed by both the national and local electoral commissions.