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Police detain 69 people for vote fraud

The Ministry of Justice said yesterday that 69 people have been detained on allegations of vote-buying connected to yesterday's elections.

A senior official from the ministry who wished to remain anonymous said that vote-buying cases associated with yesterday's election were successfully decreased due to a government crackdown first launched in the run-up to the Dec. 1 legislative elections.

"Just like in the year-end elections, the National Police Administration ordered its 70,000-member police force, including regular police officers as well as volunteers, to crack down on bribes and to maintain security during these local elections," the official said.

"According to our statistics up to now [press time last night], there are 49 vote-buying cases pending, 69 people have been detained and 160 have been released on bail.

"In the meantime, prosecutors island-wide have indicted 108 people and most of them are vote captains," the official said.

"The 69 detainees are from different political parties. More than 30 of them are from Tainan City, Pingtung County and Taitung County. The average amount of informant tips for alleged vote-buying cases in each county has been higher than 300," he said.

Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) said that it is becoming increasingly difficult to crack down on vote captains or candidates who are buying votes.

"These people are getting slicker and slicker," Chen said. "In the past, vote captains who were hired by candidates would usually bring a name list of voters as well as lots of cash and go and visit the voters. However, nowadays most candidates ask their friends or relatives to be their vote captains. As a result, once they want to buy votes or get caught, these friends or relatives help cover each other.

"Furthermore, they keep their name list and their money separate, which means they first confirm with the voters [how they will vote] and then pay them later.

"This is really making investigators' jobs more difficult since it's not easy to find evidence at the scene."

Chen suggested, however, that the fact that vote captains and candidates have become more covert can perhaps be interpreted as a good sign.

"Look at the bright side," he said. "Why would they change their ways to buy votes? It's because their traditional methods no longer work because of our investigators' hard work with our vote-buying crackdown."

Chen also said that the crackdown would not end with yesterday's polls.

"I must say it again. Our anti-vote-buying crackdown is an endless project. We will never stop because of any form of difficulty, obstacle or threat. Future candidates should keep this in mind as a friendly reminder," he said.
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