TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Over 43,000 signatures submitted in support of a recall vote against Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) have been accepted by election officials and will be verified over the next forty days, Keelung City Election Commission Director-General Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔) said on Monday (July 8).

A recall vote will take place if the signatures are verified. Chang said the city’s electoral commission will verify the signatures and eliminate any fraudulent ones per electoral laws, per CNA.

If verified, the collected signatures will have surpassed the 10% of local voters’ support needed to go to a vote. Campaigners “Shanhai Citizen’s Remove Hsieh Movement (山海公民拆樑行動)” posted on Facebook after the announcement and said it will continue to gather signatures until it gains 50,000.

Campaigners said they are collecting signatures because they care about Keelung’s governance. Hsieh, of the Kuomintang (KMT), and other members of his party have accused the campaigners of partisanship and using the recall mechanism as a political tool, which has been denied.

According to regulations, if the signatures are accepted, a recall vote could be held on Sept. 7 at the earliest and Oct. 17 at the latest. 

KMT legislators are attempting to change the law to make it harder to initiate a recall. Physical altercations broke out in the legislature on Thursday (July 4) as Democratic Progressive Party legislators attempted to block the draft's review, while both major parties accused each other of politicizing the recall process.