Taiwan's opposition said yesterday a recount from the disputed March election has revealed some new problems - including ballots that were improperly stored or not certified by the voters.

　　But the ruling Democratic Progressive Party insisted that the errors were the result of careless election workers, not voting fraud.

　　"So far there are no signs that election officials have favored a certain party or rigged votes to favor a party," DPP official Chung Chia-pin told reporters.

　　The controversy over the March 20 vote began immediately after Chen Shui-bian squeaked by with a 0.2 percent victory margin, or about 30,000 votes. He was re-elected one day after being slightly injured in a shooting incident, which is still unsolved.

　　Losing candidate Lien Chan has alleged that the vote was marred by irregularities. He called for a recount of the 13 million votes.

　　Opposition lawmaker Lu Shiow-yen told reporters yesterday that the recount has found suspicious ballots that weren't properly marked by fingerprint impressions or personal stamps, called chops, that people use to certify their vote.

　　"There were chops that didn't match with voters' names," Lu added, without saying how many ballots were problematic. "Some people used one chop to vote twice. Some chops or fingerprints were unclear. You couldn't be sure if it was the right person."

　　But court official Tang Kuang-yi told reporters that some votes for Chen and his running mate, Annette Lu, were mishandled.

　　"One team of judges found 50 ballots for Chen and Lu that were mistakenly put in a stack of ballots" for the rival candidate, Tang said.

　　About 1,600 judges and other court officials were retallying the ballots by hand. Officials weren't providing a daily tally, but they said a total of about 2 million ballots were recounted on Monday.

　　Lien has also filed a lawsuit in the High Court calling for a new election, and his lawyers were eager to find voting irregularities that would bolster their case.

　　Lawyers representing the rival candidates were monitoring the recount for fairness, and they had the authority to pull out ballots that they thought should be ruled invalid. The High Court would make the final call on the votes.

　　Attorneys from both camps said that more than 6,000 ballots were being disputed. An additional 4,449 ballots were pulled yesterday for the High Court's inspection, ETTV cable news quoted opposition lawmakers as saying.

　　Opposition lawyer Tsai Yu-ling said that hundreds of votes were improperly placed in sealed bags that were meant for referendum ballots. Tsai wanted the High Court to investigate how the ballots ended up in the wrong bags and whether this affected the vote's outcome.

　　"They (the ballots) might have been cast into the wrong ballot box. Maybe they were just stored in the wrong bag after the vote or they might have even involved voting fraud," Tsai said.

　　After all the ballots are recounted, the High Court will have to rule on the disputed ballots before it announces a winner. No date was given for when the winner would be announced.

　　(The Associated Press)