The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday said it would turn over to prosecutors 5,271 allegedly forged signatures that were submitted by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) to qualify as an independent candidate for next year’s presidential election.
CEC Chairman Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) told the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee that more than 130,000 signatures submitted by Gou and running mate Tammy Lai (賴佩霞) were invalid, including the ones believed to have been forged.
On Tuesday, the CEC certified 902,389 of the 1.03 million signatures submitted by Gou and Lai’s campaign, confirming their eligibility to run in the presidential election on Jan. 13 next year.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
They needed at least 289,667 signatures, or 1.5 percent of eligible voters in the previous presidential election, to get on the ballot.
Gou and Lai can register as presidential and vice presidential candidates between Monday and Friday next week.
Lee said the commission had reviewed each signature, and the results were comprehensive.
In other election news, the Ministry of the Interior reported that from July 1 to Monday, the police had investigated 52 incidents of alleged bribery, 90 reports of suspected election-related gambling and nine cases of spreading false information about the election.
The police have forwarded 10 incidents of bribery involving signature drives to district prosecutors’ offices, National Police Agency Director-General Huang Ming-chao (黃明昭) said, adding that there were still “a few” that the agency was still investigating.
Deputy Minister of Justice Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) said that prosecutors’ offices daily receive new information about incidents involving election signature drives, adding that he could not estimate the precise number of reports they have received.
Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said that district prosecutors’ offices would pursue all incidents that contravene the law.
Tsai said that if prosecutors discover anomalies or suspect bribery related to signature drives, they would follow the money to find the source.
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