我國〈公民投票法〉的立法過程及結果，充滿著政治計算，乃是眾所周知毋庸贅言者。昔日倉促間立法之動機，原係在野黨仗勢國會立法院席次優勢用以圍堵執政黨及行政部門發動諮詢性公投之可能，以致於〈公民投票法〉悖理之處及漏洞百出。公投立法的品質不良，便提供丁政治策略選擇的空間，在2004年陳水扁總統以防衛性公投在〈公民投票法〉中關於公投與大選合併辨理的立法失誤找到巧門，而破解了〈公投法〉對於咨詢性公投設下的障礙後，陳水扁又提出要在2008年總統大選中推動我國以臺灣名義加入聯合因之公民投票案，中國國民黨亦推出以中華民國或其他名義重返聯合國之公投案。兩案皆以我國參與聯合國為其目標，但各有共政治意圖，因而在推案進行的過程中，雙方法律上的攻防不斷。本文即以兩聯合國公投案所涉及的〈公投法〉規範問題來進行討論，希望對於〈公投法〉的認識和補正有所助益。

Everyone knows that the passage of the Referendum Law in the Legislative Yuan was implicated with political calculations. The opposition side took advantage of their legislative majority to obstruct the ruling party and the government from issuing an advice seeking, referendum, ultimately passing an irrational law that contained plenty of loopholes. The Referendum Law was deficient of good quality, yet it gave enough space for political tactics. President Chen Shui-bian-through the defensive closure in the Referendum Law-skillfully managed around the legal faults to conduct a referendum concurrently with the 2004 presidential election. Having disentangled the knots tied around the advice, seeking nature of the Referendum Law, President Chen once again issued a new referendum topic concerning the use of the Taiwan name to join the United Nations, planning to hold such referendum along with the next 2008 election. The Chinese Nationalist Party contended instead to use the Republic of China or anther name to return to the UN. In both propositions, the objective is to gin UN membership, but each of them has different political intentions in such a way that fierce disputes recurred during the referendum's promotion. This paper discusses the standard problems of the Referendum Law that are present in both proposals for UN membership, in the hopes of providing understanding and assistance to amending the Referendum Law.