As Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng arrived on the offshore island of Kinmen on the latest stage of her tour of election areas yesterday, votes were being sold at NT$10,000 a piece, the Chinese-language United Evening News said.

Voters should give the NT$10,000 to prosecutors and receive a sum ranging from NT$500,000 to NT$5 million in return, Wang said.

Competition for the limited number of elected officials on the island was fiercer than ever, the evening paper reported, leading to a higher number of alleged vote buying cases. Kinmen prosecutors were investigating 77 cases and had detained four suspects, the paper said.

On her tour of Taiwan, Wang has been frequently met by protesters accusing her of putting on a meaningless show.

Apart from vote buying, prosecutors were also investigating numerous allegations of fake domicile registrations. Kinmen was again the county with the highest number of such cases. Investigators had drawn up a list of 3,215 questionable residents who would be interviewed if they showed up at the ballot box on Dec. 5, the United Evening News wrote.

Last week, prosecutors already located 80 suspects, with ten candidates for the county council reportedly involved in the scam.

Penghu County reportedly found 400 suspect recent arrivals from Taiwan's main island, the paper said. A five-year prison term was the maximum penalty for voters participating in such a plan, prosecutors said.

The rest of Taiwan was apparently hit by unprecedented levels of vote buying. A mayoral candidate in Hualien County was detained, while in Taoyuan County the wife of a candidate had been released on bail.

The price for a vote varied from a range of NT$300 to NT$2,000, but in mountainous areas and on the outer islands the price could run up to between NT$5,000 and NT$10,000.

During a raid on a vote buying suspect in Changhua County Monday, the man apparently hid NT$11,200 in a trash can at his home, reports said.

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party on Tuesday accused the campaign of ruling Kuomintang lawmaker Wong Chung-chun, the candidate for Chiayi County Magistrate, of being involved in vote buying.

An official on Wong's campaign traveled to a bank on Nov. 13 to change more than NT$1 million worth of NT$1,000 notes into NT$500 notes, a sure sign that someone was preparing to buy votes, the DPP said.

Wong said he didn't know about his campaign aide's visit to the bank, but welcomed prosecutors to investigate.