Campaigns finished with a frenzy yesterday with candidates making last-ditch efforts and party heavyweights crisscrossing the nation canvassing ahead of today’s voting.
More than 10.6 million people are eligible to vote for mayors, city councilors and borough chiefs in five existing or soon-to-be-created special municipalities: Taipei City, Sinbei City (the name for Taipei County after next month’s upgrade), Greater Taichung, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaoshiung — the last three being the new names of the amalgamated municipalities of their respective city and county.
All the mayoral candidates were out on the streets during the day, visiting markets and waving and shaking hands with as many people as they could before capping off the night with large-scale rallies.
Photo: Weng Yu-huang, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairwoman Chang Po-ya (張博雅) reminded voters to stamp their ballots only with the voting seals provided at poll stations, not their personal seals.
“I would like to especially remind voters that they should stamp the ballots properly — meaning only with seals provided at polling stations, not personal seals or fingerprints,” Chang said after an equipment test at the commission’s headquarters in Taipei.
“In past elections, we’ve always had more than 10 percent of ballots that were invalid because they stamped with voters’ personal seals instead of the official polling station ones,” she said.
PHOTO: HUANG CHI-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Citing the 2004 presidential election, Chang said that of the 340,000 invalid ballots, about 50,000 were stamped with personal seals.
Chang also reminded voters to only vote for one candidate on each ballot by stamping in the designated blank above the candidate’s assigned number, picture and name.
She said she was expecting a little over 66 percent voter turnout.
Commission Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) reminded voters that cellphones and cameras cannot be taken into polling stations.
“If you have your cellphone or camera with you, leave them with a police officer or polling station staff at the entrance and retrieve them after casting your vote,” Teng said.
As for the vote counting, Teng said mayoral election ballots would be counted first, then city councilor ballots and finally the borough chief ballots.
“Election officials will wait until all ballots are counted to file the finalized official numbers to us,” he said. “We’re expecting to see the results by 10pm.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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