The Prosecutor General analyzes whether giving gifts during the Mid-Autumn Festival constitutes election bribery: the key lies in the consideration relationship rather than the value of the gift

Changhua County Speaker Hsieh Dian-lin was detained on suspicion that a banquet guest was involved in election bribery. Recently, many candidates were afraid of being accused of election bribery, so they did not dare to send Mid-Autumn Festival lottery gifts and canceled parent-child activities. In an interview, Taichung District Prosecutor's Office Chief Prosecutor Hong Jiayuan said in an interview that this was not a gift during the election. Gifts and invitations to dinner constitute vote bribery, and it does not mean that the gifts are of low value. The key lies in whether there is a "relationship of consideration" between interests and voting support, and whether it goes beyond ordinary social etiquette, calling on citizens to work together to protect clean election practices.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming. Recently, many community groups have held Mid-Autumn parties, dinner parties, lottery draws and gift-giving activities. Since the election will be held at the end of the year, many people are worried about whether bribery is involved? Hong Jiayuan, the prosecutor general of the Taichung District Prosecutor’s Office, said in an interview that giving gifts or treating people to dinner during the election does not constitute vote bribery, nor does it mean that there is no problem if the gift is not high in value. The focus of judicial practice judgment is to comprehensively observe the value, nature, object of provision, time, method, whether it is an established practice in daily life, whether it exceeds ordinary social etiquette, and whether there is an express or tacit request to vote. The core is whether the interest is enough to shake or affect the voting intention of the person with the right to vote, and form a "relationship of consideration" between the interest and voting support.

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Hong Jiayuan further explained that for example, if communities, temples or local groups regularly hold Mid-Autumn Festival activities, candidates are only invited to attend and modestly sponsor general gifts, and a random lottery is drawn from an unspecified public. In principle, vote bribery cannot be determined based on this alone. On the contrary, if a large amount of high-priced home appliances, cash, and gift certificates are suddenly provided before the election, or if the lottery is used in the name of "everyone gets a prize", combined with canvassing for votes, you should be highly vigilant.

Regarding the recent discussion, whether preparing fried noodles and braised eggs for a promotional event involves bribery? The Hong family principle states that if moderate tea and simple meals are provided during campaign activities, if they are not enough to influence voters' voting intentions according to social consensus, in principle, providing them for free does not constitute vote bribery; if it is elevated to a high-end banquet, high-priced seafood or alcoholic beverages, which obviously exceeds the general reasonable range, there will be doubts.

Hong Jiayuan emphasized that in order to put an end to acts that undermine elections, in addition to continuing to strictly investigate traditional vote bribery, election betting may be transferred to overseas online platforms and combined with virtual currencies and blockchain transactions, or digital interests such as electronic gift certificates and game points used to exchange for voting support, as well as false information, AI deep fakes, foreign power election and false household registration, etc., are all important aspects of election inspections.