After 148 days, 2.47 million local election ballots leave Seoul arena

After 148 days, approximately 2.47 million ballots for the June 3 local election stored at the Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium in Songpa District, southern Seoul, were removed from the venue on Thursday.

The removal is part of a probe by the special counsel to review the latest June 3 local elections. The investigation began after some voters, notably in the Jamsil neighborhood, couldn't cast their votes in time due to ballot shortages at voting stations.

The National Election Commission (NEC) began removing the ballots from the gymnasium at around 6:30 a.m. The gymnasium served as a ballot-counting center during the election and has stored the ballots for the past three months. Protesters demanding a do-over of the election had been surrounding the gymnasium since election day.

The ballots, which underwent a public review by a special counsel team, will be moved to a separate secure warehouse in the Seoul metropolitan area and other facilities.

Of roughly 420 boxes in total, 407 will be transferred to a warehouse managed by the commission. The remaining 13, which require further examination, will be taken separately by the special counsel team led by Lee Tae-han.

Those 13 boxes contain ballots that investigators determined warranted closer scrutiny, including some challenged by observers during the review process.

The special counsel team began publicly examining about 2.47 million ballots from Songpa District, along with CCTV footage from the site, at 11:49 a.m. on Wednesday. The review lasted about 13 hours and ended at 12:38 a.m. on Thursday.

The investigators checked the number of ballots and examined each one for markings and printing irregularities as observers watched the process.

Most of the ballots from Songpa District had been counted. But observers from the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) reportedly disputed the count with the NEC after claiming that more than 100 votes for the ruling Democratic Party were found in one constituency in the Songpa District Council election.

The National Forensic Service provided investigators with equipment including a digital microscope capable of magnifying objects up to 1,000 times and an infrared spectrometer to determine whether any ballots had been forged or altered.

The team had initially planned to begin at around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, but the process was delayed by about three hours after PPP observers objected to a ban on filming inside the venue.

There was also some commotion when several observers tried to film the site with their phones or use equipment they had brought themselves and were stopped from doing so. No major physical clashes occurred.

“We respected the objections raised by observers and obtained entire boxes of certain ballots through voluntary submission, while also selecting a substantial number of individual ballots that we determined required additional analysis,” Prosecutor Lee said. “We plan to examine them more closely later.”

Citizens demanding a do-over of the election gathered outside gates No. 1 and 2 of the gymnasium in an attempt to stop the ballots from being removed from the site.

Police set up barricades around the entrances and deployed officers to the site. Officers formed a human chain to keep protesters back as the boxes were taken out.

No physical clashes between police and protesters were reported.

The review is part of a criminal investigation, not a recount to redetermine the election results. That means the results will not change solely because of this review, even if ballots with irregularities are found during the more detailed analysis.

The special counsel team plans to continue examining the ballots it secured separately.

The ballots transferred to the warehouse will be kept for the duration of the elected officials’ terms, as required under the Public Official Election Act.

BY HAN YOUNG-HYE, HYEON YE-SEUL [[email protected]]