Constitution of Vote Value 1 : 0 Mar 11,2000 Do you know that Americans contributed to the Constitution of China a lot? Some words within the Gettysburg Address (1866) can be found in Article I of the Constitution of ROC "The Republic of China founded on the three Principles of the people, shall be a democratic republic of the people, by the people, and for the people". It is a peoples' republic not a parties' republic! "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW" these words were carved in large letters over its entrance of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. My impression about Americans is that most of them are honest, free, full of life and justice. So I submit this doubt of "democracy or false democracy" for my stranger US friends' reference or comments. Thanks for your reading. After our 3rd National Assembly had passed the latest 4 revised Amendments(* 1) of Constitution on Sep/03/1999, when President Lee promulgated the revised Constitution on Sep/15/1999, we the people of the Republic of China in Taiwan lost our political right to directly elect (or been elected to be) our Representatives of National Assembly. By-pass the following quoted official words, you will see the keyword presented in the next paragraph. According to the revised Amendment I, "The Fourth National Assembly shall have 300 delegates, who shall be elected, in accordance with the following provisions, by proportional representation based on the election of the Legislative Yuan. The seats shall be distributed among the participating political parties in accordance with the proportion of votes won by the candidates nominated by each party and those members of each party running as independent candidates, ......". Let me show an real example of the keyword "proportional representation" system. We elected Legislators on Dec 5, 1998. There were 176 Legislators chosen by people's direct vote. After the accumulating of votes obtained by all candidates belong to each party, the three political parties which each had gained over 5% of total votes had right to choose their "proportional" Legislators. The KMT, DPP( Democratic Progressive Party), and New-Party appointed their 27, 18, 4 seats accordingly. The ratio of the total 49 seats of "proportional representation" and the 176 seats voted directly is 0.278. That is to say, people who vote for candidates of large parties has vote weight 1.278 than others. That's ok with me, I have my daily bread to worry about. But after September 1999, the new rule of so-called "proportional representation" expanded that there shall be no public election for Representatives of National Assembly. All 300 seats shall be distributed among the participating political parties according to the proportion of the votes they win during the election of Legislators. How about those independent persons who intend to be a Representative? It seems those who vote for independent Legislators shall have no proportional quota in distributing Representative seats among parties. It is the magic of vote value 1:0. That's to much! Even students know the quotient of 1/0 is infinity, it is meaningless in mathematics when the divisor is zero. In my judgment, the revised edition violate Article 7 of Constitution "All citizens of the Republic of China, irrespective of sex, religion, ethnic origin, class, or party affiliation, shall be equal before the law". Should all Congressmen of US be appointed by parties, or even be chosen by chairmen of parties? One report on page 9 of newspaper Chinatimes on Nov 14 has mentioned that US Supreme Court once had a verdict like "Black people is not people by Constitution" in 1857(* 2). A serious joke! In the year 1999, almost 21th century, discrimination revived in the revision of constitution of another democratic republic! Silence gives consent, I can't. I can't stop crying "Is this Constitution fair?". Remarks: * 1. For English readers' convenience, the translator use the word "Representatives" instead of "delegates of National Assembly", "Legislators" for "members of Legislative Yuan", and "Amendments" for "revised additional articles of Constitution of Republic of China". According to the last revised 4 Amendments, I, IV, IX, X, and Constitution of ROC that can be found in Government Information Office homepage, http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/news/roc5.htm, the Representatives and Legislators shall have 300 and 225 seats respectively. They are similar to 435 Congressmen and 100 Senators of US in my point of view. * 2. Amendment XV of the Constitution of USA (1870) Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. * 3. Copyright free. you are welcomed to use text contents of this article without permission