Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) yesterday withdrew his application to the Taipei District Court for a recount of the votes in Saturday’s election, but pressed ahead with his plan to file a lawsuit to have the vote annulled.
His lawyer, Chou Kuo-tai (周國代), said that Ting would file a lawsuit to invalidate the election in accordance with the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
A lawsuit seeking to annul an election must be filed with the Taipei District Court, according to the act. If the court rules in Ting’s favor, the election would be invalidated and a new one would be held.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Speaking with reporters after withdrawing Ting’s petition for a recount, Chou said that Ting’s campaign had received evidence from multiple sources pointing to election irregularities stemming from the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) failure to abide by the law.
Ting filed the petition at about 3:15am on Sunday, after the commission released official election results at 2:35am.
He asked the court to seal the ballot boxes and the voter roster in the election in preparation for a recount.
The court told Ting that he must deposit NT$4.28 million (US$138,574) within 24 hours of filing the application for the recount to go ahead.
A candidate demanding a vote recount must deposit NT$3 per vote, according to the law.
A total of 1,427,643 ballots were cast in the Taipei mayoral election.
Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), an independent, beat Ting by just 3,254 votes in the five-way race.
Ko garnered 580,820 votes (41.05 percent) against Ting’s 577,566 votes (40.82 percent), while the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, Pasuya Yao (姚文智), received 244,641 (17.29 percent).
Long lines formed outside polling stations, as voters also cast ballots in 10 referendums alongside the nine-in-one elections.
In Taipei, although vote counting and reporting began shortly after 4pm, some polling stations did not close until 7:46pm due to the long lines, Ting said.
As a result, voters were able check early results online while waiting to cast their ballots, he said.
Pan-green voters who had initially intended to vote for Yao might have changed their minds and voted for Ko to keep Ting from winning after the early results showed that Yao was out of the race, Ting said.
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