Hualien authorities may have broken law: Central Election Commission

Taipei, Feb. 6 (CNA) Taiwan's Central Election Commission (CEC) has demanded an explanation from local authorities in Hualien County after personnel from the county's Household Registration Office allegedly broke the law by visiting the residences of voters who lawfully engaged in recall vote activism.

The CEC said on Thursday that the Hualien County Election Committee is empowered to work alongside the county's Household Registration Office to verify the signatures of individuals who have signed recall vote proposals by post, according to the "Regulations for Collecting and Checking Joint Signatures for the Recall Proposal of Civil Servants."

However, visits by local government personnel to the residences of signatories would be considered illegal, the CEC said.

The CEC has called on the Hualien County Election Committee to explain how the recall vote proposal list that it sent to the committee was handled.

Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁), a Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker representing Hualien County, may face an election recall vote after campaigners submitted the recall vote proposal -- which includes the names, addresses and signatures of at least 1 percent of voters in Hualien -- to the central election authority in Taipei on Monday.

The campaigners are attempting to oust their representative in the Legislative Yuan through provisions in Taiwan's Public Officials Election and Recall Act, which states that lawmakers shall be removed from office if more than half of at least 25 percent of eligible voters in their electoral district cast ballots in favor of a recall, and if the ballots in favor of the recall outnumber those opposing he recall.

Hu Jen-shun (胡仁順), a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) county councilor, said he received complaints from residents who said they had felt intimidated when Household Registration Office personnel came to their homes.

Writing on Facebook on Wednesday and Thursday, Hu said that the office's actions would represent a "serious infringement of citizens' rights" and called on civil servants not to "help Fu Kun-chi do anything illegal."

Later on Thursday afternoon, the director of the Hualien County Election Committee, Wu Chun-yi (吳俊毅), told CNA that the Hualien County Household Registration official who was photographed visiting resident's houses said she was "investigating household registration information" and not asking about signatures on the recall vote proposal.

Fu, who serves as the main opposition Kuomintang's legislative caucus whip, is one of the most high-profile figures to have been targeted by an unprecedented wave of recall vote proposals submitted by multiple campaign groups across Taiwan on Monday.

The KMT whip potentially faces a recall vote over the coming months alongside 18 other KMT lawmakers: Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀), Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之), Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭), Tu Chuan-chi (涂權吉), Lu Ming-che (魯明哲), Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲), Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲), Chiu Jo-hua (邱若華), Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐), Yu Hao (游顥), Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒), Liao Wei-hsiang (廖偉翔), Huang Chien-hao (黃健豪), Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋), Ting Hsueh-chung (丁學忠), Huang Chien-pin (黃建賓) and Ma Wen-chun (馬文君).

According to the CEC website, once the signatures on a recall vote proposal have been validated, campaigners must then collect signatures from at least 10 percent of eligible voters within 60 days before a recall vote may take place.