The Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled that presidential ballots found in bags for referendum ballots would be considered invalid.
The court also said the actual number of "controversial ballots" will be announced by its three judges after the recount is completed.
"Controversial ballots" are those ballots which were smudged with ink, unclearly stamped or stamped on the edge of the stamping area on the ballot.
However, the court said that in cases where election officials had used the list of eligible voters in the referendums to issue ballots for the presidential election, the votes would remain valid.
HUMAN ERROR
"According to the Presidential Election and Recall Law (
"However, voters for the presidential election match voters for the referendum so it is merely human error by Central Election Commission workers," Wu said, referring to the use of incorrect name lists to issue ballots.
According to an agreement by the plaintiff, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance, and the main defendant, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), any "controversial ballots" will be presented to the Taiwan High Court and Judges Wu, Cheng Chun-hui (
PREVIOUS COMPLAINTS
In response to a previous complaint from the Taiwan High Court that the plaintiff and the defendants, who include the Central Election Commission, should not release information about "controversial ballots" before the court makes a final announcement, the alliance, the DPP headquarters and the CEC all refused to comment on the latest developments yesterday.
However, reliable sources said that as of press time yesterday, the total number of "controversial ballots" was no more than 18,000.
"I promise you that a final announcement of the total number of these `controversial ballots' will be made by Wu, Cheng and Teng when the recount is completed," said Chang Hsin-hsiung (
"Although local cable TV stations kept announcing so-called `latest figures,' I am telling you that those are not accurate numbers," Chang said.
As of press time yesterday, district courts in Hsinchu, Penghu, Taichung and Miaoli had finished recounting the votes in their districts.
In Taoyuan, however, court clerk Cho Ching-ho (
Taoyuan District Court Spokesman Chen Shih-tsung (
Chen said that Taoyuan judges and court clerks were planning to finish their job by Sunday.
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