The Penghu gambling referendum on Sept. 26, 2009, is the only referendum that has been passed since the legislature enacted the Referendum Act (公民投票法) in 2003, even though for all practical purposes this particular referendum is not actually applicable to the act. This is an ironic outcome, especially in light of the fact that, at the same time, a social movement launched a referendum demanding that the government renegotiate a beef trade deal with the US. The referendum proposal was eventually killed by the excessively high threshold in the second stage of petitioning, while the Taiwan Solidarity Union’s referendum on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was annihilated in the review process by the Cabinet’s Referendum Commission. Time and again, it has been proven that the Referendum Act is a dead end.