The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that any candidate running for public office can request a recount if the result of an election is within a certain margin, after a township representative candidate who lost by two votes was ineligible to request a recount last year.
The court determined that Article 69 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員舉罷免法) was unconstitutional and should be amended immediately.
The article applies to elections for central government public officials, municipal mayors, city mayors and county commissioners.
Photo: Taipei Times
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member Yeh Kao-chieh (葉高潔), who ran last year to represent Hsinchu County’s Sinfong Township (新豐), filed a lawsuit for a recount after losing the election by two votes, claiming that the article violated the principles of equality and proportion.
The Hsinchu County District Court denied the request, saying that recounts did not apply to township representative elections and that the intention of the law was to separate categories of elected officials.
Yeh filed for a constitutional interpretation after the High Court upheld the first appellate court’s ruling.
The Constitutional Court reviewed the case on Oct. 20 and ruled that the Central Election Commission’s Hsinchu branch should retain the candidate roster and ballots for six months until the review was concluded or when the Constitutional Court revoked such an order without the plaintiff requesting a provisional injunction.
The ruling yesterday marked the first time the Constitutional Court made a judgement on the merits of an election-related case.
The court decided that the article’s preclusion of certain candidates from applying for a recount — if the difference in votes received by the candidate elected with the lowest number of votes and the candidate not elected with the highest number of votes is within 0.3 percent — was unconstitutional.
The recount system seeks to uphold the fairness of elections and protect people’s electoral rights, and should not have different standards based on elected offices, the court said.
The ruling also stated that until amendments to the act are completed, candidates in public elections who have lost, but whose number of votes was within the 0.003 margin of error, may apply to their district court to seal all or a portion of the ballots and call for a recount, which should be completed within 20 days.
The court stated that the legal grounds of the High Court ruling had been rendered null and remanded the case back to the High Court for a retrial.
Additional reporting by CNA
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