Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday received a certificate of election, despite a recount of the mayoral election having just started on Monday.
Ko on Nov. 24 won re-election, receiving 580,820 votes, or 41.05 percent, in the five-way race, only 3,254 votes more than the runner-up, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中).
Ting applied to the Taipei District Court for a recount.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Government
Taipei City Government spokesman Liu Yi-ting (劉奕霆) said that Ko wanted to keep things simple, so he asked the Taipei City Election Commission to receive the certificate from the Central Election Commission on his behalf on Monday.
Ko later asked Taipei Department of Civil Affairs Director Lan Shih-tsung (藍世聰) to accept it from the city election commission yesterday and it was taken to him at his office at Taipei City Hall, Liu said.
Ting yesterday said that as the margin between his and Ko’s votes was less than 0.3 percent, he has the right by law to ask for a recount, which is what Ko’s supporters would have done if Ko had lost by only about 3,000 votes.
After hearing about Ko’s acceptance of the certificate, Ting said that he thinks if the certificate is received while the result has not been reconfirmed, the mayor will be undignified, adding that he could take other legal action depending on the result of the recount.
Asked for comment, Ko said that he was sure that the recount would not change the result.
Separately yesterday morning, the Taipei District Court said that there was no ballot box among the 208 being recounted that contained exactly 3,000 votes.
Local media had quoted a lawyer who claimed to have participated in the recount process as saying on Monday that there were 60 votes missing from a ballot box that should have 3,000 votes in it.
People should not spread rumors or easily believe unilateral remarks made by people in Ting’s or Ko’s camps, the court said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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