The Central Election Commission (CEC) has found irregularities in the signatures submitted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for its three referendum proposals and would report them to prosecutors, commission Chairman Chen In-chin (陳英鈐) said on Thursday.
The KMT on Monday delivered more than 1.45 million signatures supporting its referendum proposals to reduce thermal power generation, halt the construction or expansion of coal-fired power plants — including Shenao Power Plant (深澳電廠) — and maintaining the ban on imports of agricultural and food products from five Japanese prefectures that was imposed following the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster of March 11, 2011.
The proposals were initiated by KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕), KMT Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) and KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) respectively.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
However, the commission said that it had found signs of irregularities, including cases in which multiple signatures were signed using the same color ink or handwriting, adding that some of the signatures differed in size, but the handwriting appeared to belong to the same person.
While checking the data for the first-threshold signatures, household registration offices also found that about 1 percent of the signatures in each of the three proposals belonged to people who are dead, an unnamed commission member said, adding that due to the large number of such cases, it is unlikely that those people passed away after signing the proposal.
Based on experience, the source said they believed that the signatures might have been copied from lists of party workers and members.
In the first-threshold signatures, the referendum proposal initiated by Lu included the names of 73 deceased people, while the ones initiated by Lin and Hau included 113 and 165 dead people respectively, commission data showed.
Including the signatures of deceased people is forgery and contravenes the Referendum Act (公民投票法), Chen said, adding that the commission would remove those signatures.
After the commission finishes checking the second-threshold signatures, it would forward evidence of alleged irregularities to prosecutors, he said.
Commission members are to discuss whether this would affect the implementation of the referendums, he added.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said that the signatures were gathered by party members or members of the public who filled the forms at signature-collecting stations or took them home for family members to sign.
It is odd for the commission to be discussing this issue now, as it has been three months since the KMT gathered signatures to meet the first threshold, he said.
“Is the commission under pressure to block the KMT’s referendum proposals?” Hung asked, urging the commission not to engage in “political manipulation.”
Denying the forgery allegations, KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said that it was “inevitable” that the names of dead people would be included in the signatures, saying that the commission could just remove those forms.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiao-kuang
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS