ELECTIONS 2022/KMT's Su seeks vote recount in Pingtung magistrate election

Taipei, Nov. 27 (CNA) Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉), the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) nominee in the Pingtung County magistrate election, said Sunday he will seek a vote recount, criticizing the vote counting process as full of flaws.

Su, who lost to Chou Chun-mi (周春米) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said he will file a petition with the court on Monday after holding discussions with his lawyer.

In Saturday's election, Su finished with 206,460 votes, or 46.59 percent of the total, with Chou receiving 217,537 votes, or 49.09 percent, according data from the Central Election Commission (CEC).

Chan Chih-chun (詹智鈞) of the New Power Party (NPP), was a distant third with 19,156 votes, or 4.32 percent, the data shows.

Su criticized the vote counting process -- which took nearly five hours -- as unreasonably long, and that there were reportedly several occasions when votes for him and Chou were mistakenly swapped.

In addition, he also questioned how it was possible after the CEC allegedly announced the number of valid ballots cast as 380,000, that the final vote count was around 443,000.

Su questioned the fairness of the election, saying he is currently collecting evidence of possible vote counting problems.

The KMT said in a press statement that it supports Su's petition, stressing that a recount is necessary particularly as the margin of victory was only 2.5 percentage points.

The KMT also urged the CEC to seal the ballot boxes and voter rosters and carry out a recount.

However, Article 69 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act clearly stipulates that recounts can only take place if the difference is 0.3 percent of votes cast or less.

In response, Pingtung Country Election Commission said the vote counting process was in line with standard operation procedures, but added it would respect the court's decision and conduct a recount if ordered to do so.