Taiwan: DPP says 'vote rigging' charge is 'baseless,' without any merit [KMT rigged votes?]

Taiwan News ^ | 5/13/2004 | Dennis Engbarth

[JohnnyZ]

****Koo says Chen would have won by 100,000 without law change***

Senior officials and lawyers of the governing Democratic Progressive Party rebutted charges by pan-blue lawmakers and an Academia Sinica (’†‰›Œ¤‹†‰@) researcher that the result of the March 20 presidential election was determined by widespread "vote rigging" as "entirely without any foundation in fact."

Incumbent President Chen Shui-bian (’…G) and Vice President Annette Lu (˜CG˜@) of the DPP won the poll by less than 30,000 votes by snaring 6.47 million votes or 50.12 percent of the ballots compared to 6.44 million for the pan-blue ticket of Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan (˜AD) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (‘v‘^àï).

Deduction

In response to suits filed with the Taiwan High Court by the pan-blue camp to annul the election results and nullify the election based on charges of electoral malfeasance, judicial workers across Taiwan held the third day of a nationwide recount of the over 13 million ballots cast in 13,749 poling places.

DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (’£r—Y) noted that a core reason for the pan-blue camp's suit to nullify the election was their suspicion that election workers declared many votes for the Lien-Soong ticket as "invalid," citing the tripling of the number of invalid votes to about 330,000 from the presidential election in March 2000.

This position was further elaborated in the scheduled meeting of the Kuomintang Central Standing Committee yesterday by Academia Sinica Institute of Information Management assistant research fellow Ma Tzu-heng in a report on how invalid votes determined the result of the election.

Stating that the percentage of invalid ballots was highest in districts that favored the DPP ticket and that the higher the percentage of invalid votes, the lower the vote share captured by Lien-Soong, Ma stated that "only vote rigging could produce such an outcome."

"I can loudly declare that the vote was rigged," declared Ma. In response to the report, KMT Chairman Lien Chan stated that Ma's research was "creative" and that the former ruling party and its lawyers were playing close attention to the invalid votes in the process of the nationwide recount, which completed its third day yesterday.

But, in a subsequent press conference, Chang related that data from the first two days of the recount indicated a trend in reverse of Ma's deduction.

Reversing the trend

Among the "invalid" ballots which were clearly marked, the votes that were intended for the Chen-Lu ticket outnumbered those intended for Lien-Soong by a ratio of 1.66 to one, precisely the reverse of what the pan-blue camp suspected, Chang noted.

"I must impolitely state that this scholar is just plain wrong!" declared the DPP secretary-general.

Academia Sinica Institute of Social Sciences assistant research fellow Hsu Yung-ming (™‰i–¾) told The Taiwan News that Ma's deduction was based on a common error in statistics known as "spurious correlation" and also did not match with past electoral experience in Taiwan.

'Ma saw that Factor 'A', the vote share for the Chen-Lu ticket, and Factor 'B', the percentage of invalid votes, had a correlation, but ignored Factor 'C,' the level of education, which influenced both the vote share of the Chen-Lu ticket and the percentage of invalid votes," Hsu noted.

"The underlying factor is level of education combined with the implementation of a tighter definition by the Central Election Commission in line with revisions in the presidential and vice presidential election law of what is a valid ballot," said Hsu.

Whereas stamps on the candidate's number, face, name and political believes as well as the blank square for the vote were usually considered "valid" votes before the change, only a stamp clearly in the specified square above the candidate's name is now considered valid under the new rules.

"People with lower levels of education were less likely to know about the new definition and more likely to cast invalid ballots and such people are more likely to support the Chen-Lu ticket," Hsu related. '

The Academia Sinica analyst also noted that the two districts with the sharpest increase in the percentage of invalid votes were the KMT-administered Yunlin County and Kinmen, while the DPP-administered Kaohsiung City had the smallest rate of change.

"KMT local governments would probably not rig the election in favor of the DPP, but would be more likely to rig votes against Chen-Lu," noted Hsu.

Hsu, who is an adviser to the Focus Survey Research polling group, added that result of the first three days of the nationwide vote recount had "not shown any signs of systematic vote rigging, but only scattered errors in electoral work."

Chen still leads

DPP lawyer delegation spokesman Wellington Koo (ŒÚ—§—Y) said that the number of discernible invalid ballots which were intended for the Chen-Lu ticket outnumbered "by a considerable amount" those intended for the Lien-Soong ticket.

"I was very moved to see so many ballots on which supporters had stamped their chops exactly on the number '1' and thus rendering their votes invalid," the lawyer related.

"If I were to offer a rough guess, I would estimate that if this law had not been changed, the Chen-Lu ticket probably would have won by over 100,000 votes instead of less than 30,000," Koo stated.

Koo also related that the Taiwan High Court had issued a circular to all local courts and lawyers for both sides affirming its intention to abide by the existing law and urging lawyers "not to excessively dispute" the ballots.

[JohnnyZ]

Turns out that the biggest problem in the election was in KMT areas, where they invalidated a lot of Chen-Lu ballots. Luckily their attempt to steal the election has been foiled! So who's having parties for the inauguration?

[Dr. Marten]

"So who's having parties for the inauguration?"

Might want to consider holding off on that until everything is said and done...

last I heard it was still tied up in recounts..

[tallhappy]

If there were rigged voting it would almost assuredly be more in KMT heavy regions. They still have the machine.

KMT are not comporting themselves well at all.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

How soon people forget. The KMT ruled Taiwan with an iron hand from the end of the Chinese Civil War-around 1949-until the time that Chiang kai-Shek's son died.

This was-and as far as I know, still is-a small clique of political apparatchiks born on mainland China who have forced themselves on the unsuspecting citizens of Taiwan.

Instead of building a coalition to oppose the imperial aggression of the PRC, they've decided to expend almost all of their remaining energy on sowing civil strife and de-stabilizing the Taiwanese polity.

[JohnnyZ]

Might want to consider holding off on that until everything is said and done...

Yeah, I'm not too worried.

I'm not sure whether to have it Wednesday the 19th (Thursday Taiwan time), Thursday, or Friday, though.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

"I DEMAND A RECOUNT! I DEMAND A HAND RECOUNT!"

"Mr. Gore, you're not eligible to be president of Taiwan, sorry."

"THAT'S REPUBLICAN RACISM, I TELL YOU! I DEMAND A RECOUNT IN VOLUSIA CONNTY"

"Mr. Gore, we're in Tapei..."

[heleny]

Whereas stamps on the candidate's number, face, name and political believes as well as the blank square for the vote were usually considered "valid" votes before the change, only a stamp clearly in the specified square above the candidate's name is now considered valid under the new rules.

"People with lower levels of education were less likely to know about the new definition and more likely to cast invalid ballots and such people are more likely to support the Chen-Lu ticket," Hsu related.

That's too bad that people still have trouble voting. Scantrons (optical scan inked ballots) are easy but are at risk of stray marks causing errors such as on these invalid Taiwanese ballots.

I still think the punchcard is the easiest and most accurate method. Computerized touch-screen voting in CA had lots of problems disenfranchising voters in March, and people have raised concerns about the security or accuracy of the vote counts in the Diebold system. Some CA counties with touch-screen voting may return to punchcards or optical scan paper ballots this November.

Are they also tallying the ballots on which were written "none of the above," or will those be lumped in with the other invalid ballots?

[Khurkris]

There was some scattered problems with one type of electronic voting machine. I believe the ones made by Diebold Corp. They were suspect even before the election,but foolishly they were used. I look for of electronic voting to continue using the better, safer machine such as we used in Huntington Beach.

"Hsu, who is an adviser to the Focus Survey Research polling group, added that result of the first three days of the nationwide vote recount had "not shown any signs of systematic vote rigging, but only scattered errors in electoral work."

Lol...I would also hold off on the celebration just yet. This will probably drag on for a while yet. Of course, there are those who wish to continue to spread rumors and innuendo for their own ego or political agenda.

And one must never forget the PRC Yellow Horde minions waiting to subjugate the island under its despotic blanket.

Unfortunately this election mess is not over yet. There are still quite a few unanswered questions. So...the intrique will continue.

[tallhappy]

The irony is that the more stringent rules for valid ballots were introduced and passed by the KMT.

Generally the KMT are like the Dems here -- urban, cosmopolitan and ostensibly more sophisticated.

The rubes in Taiwan's equivalent of our flyover country are the ones they thought wouldn't be able to vote.

[heleny]

The irony is that the more stringent rules for valid ballots were introduced and passed by the KMT.

Sorry, I didn't see the irony.

The new rules (invalidating stamps not inside the box but clearly on the number, face, party, or candidate name) helped the KMT by invalidating many more DPP votes than KMT votes, according to the article. Without the new rules, the KMT would have lost by a larger margin than 30,000, and the number of invalid ballots would have been lower. So, it seems like the new rules helped the KMT.

I also didn't understand why the rates of invalid ballots increased in KMT areas, when DPP voters are more likely to cast invalid ballots.