China Post makes absurd claim

What else is new, right? From one of yesterday's editorials ...

According to reports, the largest opposition party will set up "trick-prevention task groups" island-wide, particularly in those counties and cities in the south where the KMT is not in control. In addition to supervisors officially recommended by the KMT, the party will assign more supporters to watch closely the whole process of balloting.

Because we all know properly monitoring an election involves watching those places you're not in charge of. This makes me believe the plan is to just complain of "irregularities" regardless of reality, in an attempt to further alienate the DPP administration from the voters.

Looking back on results of the presidential elections in 2004 and mayoral elections in Kaohsiung in 2006, we cannot but share the KMT's doubts about their validity, because the DPP won both elections by extremely small margins when the KMT candidates enjoyed huge leads in popularity in pre-poll opinion surveys. It is, therefore, reasonable to suspect the elections might somehow be rigged. A lack of effective ballot supervision might be a decisive factor in the KMT defeats.

Riiiight. If the consistently inaccurate pollsters are wrong, then the elections might "somehow" be rigged. God knows how, given the professionalism of the poll workers, the lawyers from both parties present, and the tape recorders, but "somehow." Also note -- the Liberty Times had a very accurate poll right before the Kaohsiung election showing a near dead tie with a thin victory for the DPP's Chen Chu. Why just ignore the only paper with accurate poll results for the last two elections?

Take the presidential elections in 2004, for example. It has been widely reported that many ballot supervisors from the "pan-blue" side, particularly those in southern Taiwan, did not show up at polling sites due to a variety of reasons such as fears of violence incited by "pan-green" radicals.

I guess by "widely reported" you mean "largely imagined."

Thus, with no opposition people watching, it was easy for the "pan-green" camp to tamper with the vote results by illegal means.

Sure.

With four ballots in hand, voters tend to make mistakes in casting them. Some observers have already pointed out that such confusion is exactly what the administration intends to create -- to facilitate its manipulation of the elections.

Clearly absurd. I've already written one post today on this topic. And why not cite one such "observer?"