Members of special counsel Lee Tae-han’s team, election workers and observers prepare for the public verification of ballots from the June 3 local elections at the SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Olympic Park, Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Oct. 28.JOINT PRESS CORPS
Ballots from Seoul’s Songpa District that protesters had kept from leaving an Olympic Park arena since the June 3 local elections were finally moved out Thursday, 148 days after the vote.
A special counsel team investigating the National Election Commission (NEC) took all 433 Songpa ballot boxes out of the SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium at around 6:40 a.m., a day after publicly inspecting every ballot inside. Of the 2.47 million ballots, observers flagged about 700 for suspected forgery or damage.
The team plans to analyze some of the disputed ballots itself and send others to the National Forensic Service for detailed examination. The 420 boxes that drew no objections went to a separate warehouse managed by the NEC, as the Public Official Election Act requires the commission to keep ballots for the duration of the winners’ terms.
Songpa was the district hit the hardest by ballot shortages in the June 3 elections, and the first where they came to light. Some election-fraud claimants have argued that the NEC rigged the results using ballots it had siphoned off. They had blockaded the area around the gymnasium, which served as Songpa’s vote-counting center, to stop the ballots from leaving.
The special counsel inspected the ballots for 13 hours starting at 11:49 a.m. Wednesday. Some 500 people, including NEC staff, examined the printing and paper of each ballot by hand. About 100 people, including observers selected by the National Assembly and lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties, monitored the work. The observers included lawyer Do Tae-woo and others who have long claimed election fraud.
Reportedly, none of the so-called cabbage-leaf or Japanese-flag ballots that some fraud claimants had predicted turned up. Both labels date from the 2020 general election. The cabbage-leaf ballots were sheets on which two ballot types partly overlapped in printing, so they looked like a green-and-white leaf. The Japanese-flag ballots were ones whose official seal had smeared into a red blot. Fraud claimants cited both as proof of fake ballots, but the Supreme Court ruled the overlapping sheets genuine, and the NEC attributed the smeared seals to ink from the stamp.
Protesters chant slogans demanding a re-election over alleged fraud and a hand count of same-day ballots at Olympic Park in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Oct. 28, as special counsel Lee Tae-han’s team publicly verifies ballots from the June 3 local elections.YONHAP
Some observers did raise concerns, including that ballots felt too stiff. The team set aside the ballots that observers suspected were forged or damaged.
“Even if you add up all the disputed ballots, they would not change the outcome for a single district council member,” a Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker on the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee told Yonhap.
Lee Tae-han, the special counsel, had cautioned against reading too much into the inspection when he spoke to reporters before it began Wednesday.
Special counsel Lee Tae-han holds a press conference before the public verification of ballots from the June 3 local elections at the SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Olympic Park, southern Seoul, on Oct. 28.JOINT PRESS CORPS
“We will make sure not to hastily draw conclusions on matters that have not yet been confirmed or, conversely, to predict outcomes without sufficient confirmation,” Lee said. “Today’s verification results should be assessed based on objective data and verified evidence, not on political claims or speculation.”
The verification is part of a criminal investigation, not a recount under the Public Official Election Act, so its findings have no effect on the results of the June 3 elections.
Some observers who took part in the inspection renewed the fraud claims afterward. People Power Party (PPP) leader Jang Dong-hyeok wrote on social media that “a storage box with a damaged seal was found” and that “many ballot papers with different colors or narrow left and right margins were found.”
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, attending as an observer, talks with special counsel Lee Tae-han about a ban on filming at the ballot verification site at the SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Oct. 28.JOINT PRESS CORPS
Because the Songpa ballots had already been counted, their boxes are not subject to the same strict sealing requirements as boxes coming straight from polling stations. The tape closing the boxes is not even considered a seal. Differences in color and margins can arise unavoidably during printing, storage and transport, according to the NEC. The special counsel plans to launch an investigation into the ballots if the National Forensic Service finds signs of a crime.
Some observers also questioned boxes that the inspection had cleared. The PPP claimed the DP’s vote count in the proportional representation race for the Songpa District Council was wrong and that the party had not received a sufficient explanation. PPP members formed a human chain around the boxes for five hours from about 1 a.m. Thursday, after the verification ended, to block the transfer.
“They took them and vanished as if fleeing in the night,” Jang said after the special counsel began moving the boxes out at around 6 a.m.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
