The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) yesterday filed an application with the Taipei District Court to have the ballots from Saturday’s Taipei mayoral election sealed and was expected to file a lawsuit to have the vote annulled after losing the mayoral race to Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
The election was held alongside 10 referendums at 1,563 polling stations citywide from 8am to 7:46pm, but the ballot counting in the neck-and-neck race lasted for more than 10 hours until 2:35am yesterday.
In the five-way race, Ko garnered 580,820 votes, or 41.05 percent of the votes cast, against Ting’s 577,566 votes (40.82 percent).
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Pasuya Yao (姚文智) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) received 244,641 votes, or 17.29 percent.
Ting, who lost to Ko by 3,254 votes, arrived at the court with his lawyer at about 3:15am yesterday.
At about 6am, the court issued a ruling requiring him to pay a deposit of NT$4.3 million (US$139,150) within 24 hours.
According to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), the applicant must pay a deposit of NT$3 per vote for a recount, the court said, adding that 1,427,643 votes were cast in the Taipei mayoral election.
Ting’s application would be rejected if he does not make the deposit, it said.
Ting told reporters in front of the court that he believes there were major illegalities in the voting and counting process.
Taipei was the only city in this year’s elections where the “dump-save effect” could have occurred, he said, referring to strategic voting by the public to sacrifice one candidate for another in the event of a tight race between multiple — usually three — candidates.
Candidates were barred from releasing polls 10 days before the elections to prevent influencing voters and campaigning was not allowed on election day, he said.
Despite the measures, vote counting took place for three hours and 46 minutes as ballots were still being cast on Saturday, he said, adding that no other country in the world would allow this to happen.
Ting also questioned the counting process, which he said took more than nine hours and was paused several times.
New Taipei City has a bigger population than Taipei, but its counting process was faster, he said.
Ting said he suspects the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Taipei City Election Commission conspired to bring forth the “dump-save effect” in the city, insinuating that pan-green camp voters “sacrificed” Yao to elect Ko, an independent.
It was a “dirty trick” played by the DPP, he added.
Ting said his next step would be to file a lawsuit to invalidate the election.
The CEC and Ko said they respect Ting’s decision.
If Ting emerges as victor in the recount, the court would return his deposit, but he would forfeit the money if he loses the recount, according to the act.
The act also requires that the local government cover the expenses of the recount.
Lawyer Lin Chih-chun (林智群) said that if the KMT claims that simultaneous voting and vote-counting would affect the results of the election, then it should file lawsuits to invalidate all of the elections in the cities and counties where that was the case.
Voting and counting also happened simultaneously in New Taipei City, Taichung and Kaohsiung, cities in which the KMT won, he said.
Ting’s legal team said that alleged illegalities in Taipei were enough to influence the results of the election, adding that the “dump-save effect” only happened in Taipei.
Additional reporting by Chung Hung-liang and CNA
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS