The Changhua District Court yesterday approved Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative candidate Chen Chin-ting’s (陳進丁) application for a ballot recount.
Chen lost the legislative election in Changhua County’s first district on Saturday by a narrow margin.
While the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Wang Hui-mei (王惠美) received 63,084 votes, Chen had 62,664 votes, losing by 420 ballots.
On Saturday night, Chen applied to the district court for a ballot recount. Judge Kang Bi-zhou (康弼周) approved the application and early yesterday morning went to the county’s election committee to seize all ballots and voters’ lists in the first district.
Wu Shu-ling (吳淑玲), the spokesperson of the county’s election committee, said that under Article 69 of the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法), if a winner’s vote count in a legislative election is within 3/1,000 of the vote count for the runner up, the second-place candidate may apply for a ballot recount. The article also stipulates that the district court must complete the recount within 20 days after approving an application.
Chen said as many as 2,895 ballots were invalidated in his election district.
“In Lugang Township (鹿港), there were more than 800 invalidated ballots, which is very strange,” Chen said.
Wang responded by saying that she respected the legal process.
Meanwhile, in Chiayi County’s first district, DPP legislative -candidate Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) lost the election by 895 ballots. Tsai’s rival, Wong Chung-chun (翁重鈞) of the KMT, garnered 73,481 ballots, while Tsai received 72,586 votes.
Tsai said yesterday he would file a lawsuit to invalidate Wong’s win.
“I will ask for a ballot recount and also ask the court to investigate whether Wong conducted vote-buying in the campaign,” Tsai said. “The election is not over.”
Wong refused to comment, except to say: “This is his business.”
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