Kaohsiung District Court yesterday began the recount of about 1,140,000 ballots from December's Kaohsiung mayoral election.
The court staffers, divided into 20 teams, will spend six days taking two shifts every day to recount the ballots, the court said, adding that about 350 police officers will guard the court.
Results of the recount will not be announced until Monday, the court said.
The court was obliged to recount the ballots after it accepted a lawsuit filed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chun-ying (
Director of the court's administrative tribunal Tu Yu-tou (涂裕斗) said the court accepted the case because the number of invalid ballots -- 6,622 votes -- was considered to be too high and that Chen's margin of victory was so slim.
Taking the presidential election of 2004 as a precedent, there could be approximately five controversial ballots from each of the 839 voting stations in Kaohsiung, Tu said, adding that the number of contentious ballots could outnumber the difference in votes cast for each candidate.
Tu added that the court accepted the case also on the grounds that Huang's camp presented witnesses who said there were irregularities at more than 100 voting stations.
The court would like to end the dispute once and for all by conducting a recount, Tu said.
Huang and Chen's camps sent out volunteers and lawyers to supervise the recount yesterday.
Director of the Kaohsiung City Government's Department of Information Hsiao Yu-cheng (蕭裕正) said on Friday that Chen's attorneys had been fully prepared for any possible outcome and that they were very optimistic about the result of the recount.
Yesterday Huang said that he would respect the result of the recount and promised he would not mobilize supporters to go to the court in a bid to avoid any accusations of interference in the recount.
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