The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office has activated an anti-vote-buying and anti-election task force yesterday for next January’s presidential and legislative elections.
State Prosecutor-General Huang Shyh-ming (黃世銘) said there would be no limit to efforts to investigate allegations of vote-buying and such probes would be carried out based on the principles of “impartiality, quality and efficiency.”
“We will get to the bottom of the allegations. The action will not stop upon the conclusion of elections, nor will the suspects be treated differently based on their identities,” Huang said.
From the start of the campaign for last year’s special municipality elections until Friday, prosecutors had indicted 1,546 suspects in 620 vote-buying cases, with another 59 cases still under investigation, Huang said.
There have been 62 lawsuits to invalidate election results, he said, and 12 of the cases have been closed. Trials for the remaining 50 cases are still underway, he said.
Suspects were also indicted in 10 cases of violence, he added.
Prosecutors on Kinmen said they would focus on their investigations on “phantom voters” to eliminate Kinmen’s reputation as a “vote-buying island.”
Chang Chin-tu (張金塗), head of the Kinmen Prosecutors Office, said “phantom voters” refer to people who register their residences in Kinmen, but do not actually live there and only show up to cast their ballots.
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