The first electoral district of Miaoli County will hold a by-election on March 14 to fill the seat vacated by Lee E-tin (李乙廷), whose election was formally invalidated because of vote-buying, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced on Friday.
The proposal to hold the legislative by-election on the second Saturday in March was unanimously approved at a meeting of CEC commissioners, a CEC statement said.
The CEC schedule said an election gazette will be issued on Jan. 5, and hopefuls could register their candidacy between Jan. 12 and Jan. 16.
Qualified candidates will draw lots on Feb. 18 to determine the order in which their names will appear on the ballots and can present their platforms in officially organized campaign forums from March 4 to March 13.
CEC officials said the Miaoli County Government originally suggested that the by-election be held on March 7, but with six national civil service exams taking place that day, CEC commissioners decided to hold the by-election a week later on March 14.
Lee, of the governing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), was elected as a first-term lawmaker on Jan. 12 earlier this year but lost the seat on Dec. 10 when the Taiwan High Court’s Taichung branch rejected his appeal against a May 28 Miaoli District Court ruling that had annulled his election on vote-buying charges.
Lee was the first member of the current legislature to lose a seat. The loss is not expected to have much impact on the lawmaking body, where the KMT and its allies hold nearly three-fourths of the seats.
Lee, a former secretary-general of the Miaoli County Farmers’ Association, garnered 64,817 votes in the Jan. 12 election against 46,905 votes for two-term legislator Tu Wen-ching (杜文卿) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Tu filed a civil suit seeking the invalidation of Lee’s election.
The court verdict said Lee made 16 visits to temples in Yuanli and Jhunan — two of the eight townships in one of Miaoli County’s two electoral districts — between June and October last year.
During that time he made donations and solicited support via his campaign aides for his election bid. Because Lee had not been previously known to make donations to temples and had only done so during the election campaign, the court ruled they were designed to improperly influence voter behavior.
The high court had the final say on the case.
As Lee’s remaining term in office exceeds one year, the CEC must hold a by-election within three months of the court verdict under the existing Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法).
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS