Recount, the right thing to do

Politics Taiwan Politics
41

[quote=“SCL”]I think the prevailing analysis is that Lien and Soong have a very weak case for nullifying the vote based on pure legal grounds. However, a strongly worded China Times editorial today called for the political, i.e. extra-legal, resolution of the matter. It asked CSB to:

  1. Direct the executive branch to do an “administrative” recount of the votes (that is, sidestepping the judicial process and hurdles dictated by law)

  2. Form a special commission to investigate the shooting (that is, sidestepping or supplementing the official police investigation)

This is a hard one.

In a mature democracy, such a solution would be clearly unthinkable. Imagine if Bush & Gore directly negotiated the election impasse in 2000 rather than let it wend its way through the courts?! Plus it would set a horrible precedent.

But as everyone knows, Taiwan does not yet have a true society based on the “rule of law.” Given that the protests are really political (“the election was unfair”), not legal in nature, a political resolution may really be necessary.[/quote]

A political solution would proceed according to the rules of politics, and with Chen already in the seat of power I doubt very much that he would find the idea of such a potential “resolution” attractive.

In the absence of evidence suggesting there was some wrongdoing there is no reason for Chen to appoint a special commission to investigate his own shooting. I doubt he would undertake it, certainly not until the police investigation runs its course.

42

Let him howl for all he’s worth. He’ll be howling mostly into the wind. No one who matters will be paying much attention to him, and his howls won’t make any significant difference to anything important.

Lien Chan, soon to be ex-chairman of the KMT, will be all but forgotten a few months from now. He’ll be a mere footnote in the history books, as a public official who lined his pockets with enormous wealth and who was removed from office as premier after a huge public demonstration against his incompetent handling of the nation’s affairs, and as a deeply flawed politician who failed miserably in the only two elections he ever contested, despite having all the cards stacked in his favour each time.

Go away and retire, Mr. Lien Chan. Withdraw from public life and live out your last days enjoying your questionably-gotten riches. You’ve plenty of luxurious homes to stay in close to your children in the U.S., if you so choose. You can wile away your time mugging up on what you failed to learn about the workings of democratic systems when you supposedly studied for your Ph.D. in political science. You can seek treatment for the demons in your head that have caused you to do such regrettable things behind the closed curtains of your family domain. But you’d better not waste any time trying to groom either of your sons to step into your shoes on the political stage: the days of ascendancy for your kind have ended forever in Taiwan.

43

Here, here!

HG

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Here, here!

And with that, the fetid motion was carried into retirement.

HG

45

I think a recount should be fair. But what if everytime you count it it turns out differently? :noway: Nullification should only be granted with evidence.

Quote from NY Times:

[quote]Su Chi, a senior adviser to Mr. Lien and a top Nationalist Party official, said Saturday night that the shooting raised a number of questions that investigators did not have time to answer before the vote.

He said Mr. Chen, running for office in Tainan 18 years ago, appeared at an election-eve rally with an intravenous drip and claiming that he had been poisoned by the Nationalists, then the governing party. He appeared healthy the next day, Mr. Su said, saying the poisoning charge was an election gambit.[/quote]

Nobody knows if the shooting is staged. But KMT rallying it’s supporters helps push the investigation forward. Given the behaviors of politicians (blue or green) in Taiwan, I think sometimes it takes extreme measures to fend off the extreme behaviors.

I read on some other discussion that many are displeased with Mayor Ma’s handling of the mob in front of the presidential hall. Yes by western standard he should be handled the mob a little more strongly. However that may risk his political career in the KMT. The fact that Ma’s mayoral election garners nearly 70% of the votes(if I remember correctly) and failed to grab the same percentage in Taipei in this election has already have some effect in his future standing. Some place in the udn web site (yes I know it’s too biased) which I forget where the link is points out that he had discussed with Lien without any substantial gain.

Disclaimer: I’m a “retarded” pan blue supporter.

46

yes indeed hear hear to omni…i can’t wait to see the back of that poisonous toad lien chan…

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Thanks for the law SCL. I read the whole law and it seems that there is nothing about a recount in it at all. Nullification is possible (although going bu those regulatioins the KMT don’t stand a chance), but no recounts.

Brian

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If it is indeed discovered that the shooting was staged, Chen and Lu can be impeached and removed from office following the proper democratic process. It’s not as if attempts to remove him from power this way haven’t been attempted before. There is no legal basis to nullify an election because of ‘dirty tricks’ a politician pulls during the campaign. To draw an example from American history, when Nixon was found out to have pulled all kinds of sleazy and illegal ‘dirty tricks’ during the 1972 Presidential campaign, that did not mean that the 1972 election results were nullified and the votes recounted. Whatever’s going to be done has to follow the legal democratic process. That’s the way we do things in a functioning democracy. If Lien has any valid complaints about the legality of the election process, let him take it to the courts. So far he has not offered any.

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Hehe! I only know as much about American politics as I have to. :slight_smile: PS Can you say Nunavut, and Inuktituk. Probably not. :wink:

Now I know this…

I followed on CNN for the first 10 days or so. In the end they did do a recount but it was voided by the Supreme court before it could be completed.

From November 8th to the 20th there was an on and off recount.
November 21: The Florida Supreme Court orders hand counts to continue, and gives counties five days to complete them. Recount is on.
November 22-December 11: On off on off on off. Till the supreme court over ruled the state supreme court.

My god is that how long it took?
Finally most, I like most foreigners, (Non American) gave up following. Simply because it was getting boring. Just like “general hospital” and “days of our lives.”

Hope it doen’t take that long here. I don’t think Taiwan could take it as well as the states.

Ski

edition.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS … /got.here/

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If there is a whole election recount, it will take forever to do!

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Believe me whatever happens here will make the American process look like the epitome of reason and cooperation :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Spack”]Even if Chen wins a recount, Lien is still going to be howling about the 300,000 invalid votes which he assumes were mostly for him.

Without investigating the issue of those invalid ballot papers we’re never going to hear the end of it from the Lien camp, recount or no recount.[/quote]

taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003107253

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It’s an interesting article, thanks ludahai.

More people might click on it if you state what it is about.[that’s a hint]
Some people find it annoying to have to click on a link in order to find out what it is about.

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[quote=“Spack”]It’s an interesting article, thanks ludahai.

More people might click on it if you state what it is about.[that’s a hint]
Some people find it annoying to have to click on a link in order to find out what it is about.[/quote]

Sorry, considering that it was a direct response to your quote, I thought it would be self-evident, especially considering the sophistication of the average Forumosa user… :noway:

55

It’s not self-evident from your post that the link is about the Pan-Purple Alliance, the ‘Millions of Invalid Votes Project’ etc.

Sorry, links without a few words of description is a pet peeve of mine.

56

[quote=“Spack”]It’s not self-evident from your post that the link is about the Pan-Purple Alliance, the ‘Millions of Invalid Votes Project’ etc.

Sorry, links without a few words of description is a pet peeve of mine.[/quote]

Please accept my apologies.

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It ain’t no biggie - fuggedabaadit. :slight_smile:

Does anyone know anything about the distribution of the invalid ballots? Were they concentrated in one region of the country, for example?

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Some people are claiming that based on the number of people who voted, and the numbers of people who voted for either Chen or Lien then, statistically, ‘all’ the 330,000-odd invalid ballots ‘must have been’ intended for Lian.
Sorry, I don’t have a reference, just saw it on the TV news.

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In reply to Spack’s postings:

I’ve posted in anothe thread:

“The reason why there is higher number of invalid votes than in the past is because the rule has been changed: in the past, if the circle was stamped on the candicate’s picture or number on the ballot, it’s counted as valid. For this eleciton, the rule has been changed to treating such ballots as invlid. A lot of DPP supporters in the countryside are older Taiwanese who had Japanese education before the war and cannot read Chinese well. They didn’t know about the rule and simply voted in the same way as they used to, i.e. stamp on the picture “to be sure”. In fact, many observers at polling stations have reported that a majority of the invalide ballots were meant for Chen (DPP).”

FYI, the ballot has two columns, one for each candiate team. In each column, there are three “rows”, the pictures of the candiates on the top, then the number of the candidate set (1 for DPP, 2 for KMT/PFP) in the middle, the third “row” below is an empty square frame for the voter to stamp a circle on.

In the past, if the circle was stamped in the area where the candidate’s picture or number is the ballot was counted as valid as long as the circle didn’t cross over neighboring columns (of other candidates). This has been the practice for the last few decades for both regional and central elections.

For this presidential election, the rule changed to counting those ballots as invlid that have the circle stamped on the picture or the number of the candiate.

Many elderly Taiwanese report on local radio call-in shows about having stamped on the picture of Abian or on the number 1 because they were told: “to vote for Abian, simply stamp (for) number 1 [linguistic ambiguity in Taiwanese]”.

The following are the official figures of invalid ballot rate in each region, sorted by the percentage. It confirms what these elderly people report. Most of them live in the rural regions (“counties”.)

==============================================
=== Ordered by the percentage of invalid ballots ===

Generally, a “county” is a relatively rural region and
a “city” is an urban area.

  1. The list shows that the percentage of invalid rate is higher
    in the rural areeas than in the urban ones.
  2. There is no areas where the percentage of invalid ballots
    is unusually high.

Yunlin County - 3.9897%
Kinmen County - 3.6606%
Chiayi County - 3.5096%
Changhua County - 3.4603%
Ilan county - 3.3516%
Miaoli County - 3.3404%
Taoyuan County - 2.9787%
Kaohsiung County - 2.9200%
Tainan County - 2.8803%
Nantou County - 2.8417%
Taitung County - 2.6698%
Lienchiang County - 2.6441%
Penghu County - 2.6362%
Hsinchu County - 2.5486%
P’intong County - 2.5323%
Hualien County - 2.4573%
Taichung County - 2.4397%
Taipei County - 2.4245%
Hsinchu City - 2.3284%
Keelung City - 2.1955%
Taipei City - 1.9017%
Chiayi City - 1.8648%
Tainan City - 1.8598%
Taichung City - 1.8383%
Kaohsiung city - 1.6423%

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[quote=“Spack”]Some people are claiming that based on the number of people who voted, and the numbers of people who voted for either Chen or Lien then, statistically, ‘all’ the 330,000-odd invalid ballots ‘must have been’ intended for Lian.
Sorry, I don’t have a reference, just saw it on the TV news.[/quote]

That was an idiotic member of PFP who was so mathematically challenged that, in effect, he uttered a sign of wonder that 1 plus 1 really renders 2 and that things cannot be so “perfect”; therefore, there must be foul play here.

It has become a joke on the Net. The blue camp doesn’t want to talk about it any more. You are welcome to talk about it though :slight_smile: