A village warden in Yilan County was recalled on Saturday over his support for a mining project.
The Yilan County Election Commission said 67.75 percent of Jhonghua Village (中華) voters cast ballots, with a vote of 257 to 137 to recall Jhonghua Village Warden Hsu Cheng-tung (許正東).
Hsu, who won office in the nine-in-one local elections on Nov. 24, 2018, said he respected the results of the recall election, but was concerned about a possible domino effect, saying a 2016 amendment to the Civil Servant Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) has made it easier for a recall vote to be conducted.
Under the amendment, a 50 percent voter turnout threshold was removed, and all that is now required is for at least 25 percent of an area’s electorate to support a recall election, and a simple majority on polling day.
The central issue in the recall effort was a proposal to launch a clay and silica rock mining project, which Hsu said he had supported only because experts had given the assurance that there was no risk of pollution.
The Executive Yuan last month approved the environmental impact assessment for the project.
Saturday’s recall vote was the second in less than a month, following the historic June 6 vote that saw 42.14 percent of Kaohsiung voters cast ballots, and 97.4 percent voting to oust then-Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the first recall of the head of a special municipality.
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