Taipei, Dec. 13 (CNA) Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), the Kuomintang (KMT) candidate in the Nov. 24 Taipei mayoral race, said Thursday he will seek legal recourse to uphold fairness in the election, after a vote recount released earlier in the day showed him losing by a slightly bigger margin.

Two days earlier, Ting had filed a lawsuit to have the election annulled, even before the Taipei District Count officially announced the results of the recount.

At a news conference Thursday, he said that although there was no big difference between the recount and the numbers released by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on election night, the recount revealed several irregularities in the voting process.

He alleged that thousands of ballots were given to unverified voters and that 1,800 ballots were found to be problematic.

Ting said he had also received numerous reports from his supporters about irregularities at the polling stations in Taipei.

Like the request for the recount, the lawsuit to nullify the election is aimed at ensuring fairness of the election system, he said.

"All the evidence gathered from the vote recount will be very helpful in the litigation," he added.

Meanwhile, the winner of the election, incumbent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said after the release of the recount results that it was no different than he had expected.

"I knew I would gain more votes," he said.

The recount, which was conducted by the Taipei District Court, showed Ko with 580,663 votes, winning by 3,567 over his closest competitor Ting, who got 577,096.

The recount was carried out at the request of Ting the day after the election, which Ko won by 3,254 votes, a razor-thin margin of 0.23 percent.

According to Taiwan's election laws, if the margin between the two leading candidates is smaller than 0.3 percent, the losing candidate may seek a recount.

(By Liu Chien-chung and Flor Wang)
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