TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Tuesday (Nov. 14) announced that Foxconn Technology founder and presidential hopeful Terry Gou (郭台銘) and his running mate Tammy Lai (賴佩霞) had received 900,000 signatures, far exceeding the minimum threshold to qualify for the 2024 Taiwan presidential election.

In a press release, the CEC said that Gou and Lai had garnered 902,389 verified petition signatures, more than triple the required signatures. It said that certification of completion of the petition signatures will be issued in accordance with the law, and a petition signature deposit of NT$1 million (US$31,127) will be returned to the candidates.

Gou's office recently announced that it had received a total of 1,036,778 petition signatures. After being submitted to the CEC for review, 902,389 petition signatures were ratified, exceeding the threshold of 289,667, enabling Gou to officially receive a spot on the presidential ballot.

The CEC said that in addition to Gou and Lai, there were nine other pairs of aspiring presidential and vice presidential candidates. However, with the exception of Gou and Lai, the nine other potential presidential tickets gathered less than half of the legally required number of petition signatures and for that reason, their petition signature deposits will not be refunded.

In accordance with Article 23, Paragraph 4 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), if the number of petition signatures reaches 1.5% of the total number of voters in the most recent presidential election, the committee will publicly announce the completion of the signature drive, and a certificate of completion will be issued to the candidate.

If the number of petition signers is less than half of the required number, the NT$1 million deposit will not be refunded. The current petition threshold was based on 1.5% of the voters who participated in the 2020 Taiwanese presidential election.