TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Kuomintang (KMT) candidate in last year’s Taipei City mayoral election, Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), said Friday (September 20) that he was pushing through with his legal case because he wanted the court to rule that having votes counted while voters were still casting their ballots is illegal.
Ting lost the election last November to independent incumbent Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) by a mere 3,000 votes, but a district-level court ruled against his objections to the outcome.
On Friday, Ting appeared at a session of the Taiwan High Court reviewing his latest appeal, UDN reported. The aim of his latest case is to prove it is illegal to start counting the ballots while voting is still taking place, Ting said.
The November local and regional elections were combined with votes on 11 referendums, causing long lines at several poll stations with voting unable to be completed by the usual cut-off time of 4 p.m.
The Central Election Commission acknowledged in court on Friday there had been problems with the organization of the vote, but not to the extent that laws or the Constitution were violated.
The Taipei City Election Commission argued that if voters arriving before 4 p.m. had been turned away, that would have constituted a real violation of the principle of fair elections, UDN reported.