South Korea election chief quits over ballot paper shortages
by Jack Kim and Joyce Lee
SEOUL, June 5 (Reuters) – The head of South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC) said on Friday he would resign to take responsibility for a shortage of ballot papers that disrupted voting in some areas in Wednesday’s local elections and triggered a public outcry.
Roh Tae-ak said there can be no excuse for the failure, which has damaged the public’s interest and determination to participate in the democratic process and understandably increased distrust in the electoral process.
Roh, who as a Supreme Court judge leads the independent commission as well as its massive secretariat that oversees all elections in the country, said a panel of outside experts would be set up to investigate the cause of the mishap and that he would accept the conclusions of its findings.
An NEC official later told a briefing that ballot papers had run out in 50 polling stations and had to be redelivered, while voting in 22 polling stations was interrupted due to delays in purchasing supplies.
There were approximately 14,300 polling stations nationwide.
Voters waited for hours overnight in some places after the polls officially closed at 18:00 (09:00 GMT) on Wednesday; this includes a polling station in Seoul’s Songpa district. Here, an angry crowd set up a blockade and prevented officials from moving the ballot boxes after the voting was over.
Protesters remained in the rain overnight until Friday morning, when hundreds of police were sent to escort commission officials to collect the last two ballot boxes. Vote counting officially ended Friday afternoon.
The NEC official said ballot papers were printed for 50% of voters eligible to vote in Wednesday’s election due to high turnout in two days of early voting last week.
He said the total number of ballots printed during the three days of voting was 73% of the number of eligible voters.
The final turnout in the elections in which mayors, governors, district governors and local council members were elected was 63 percent.
The ballot shortage sparked an angry response; By acknowledging the incident, government officials amounted to a failure to protect the people’s democratic right to vote.
Some right-wing protesters stormed the gym in the Songpa district where the last votes were counted and demanded a recount of all votes.
According to media reports, a complaint was filed with the police against election officials, accusing them of abuse of authority and dereliction of duty.
Reports stated that others requested a decision from the Constitutional Court on the grounds that it violated their right to vote.
(Reporting by Jack Kim, Editing by Ed Davies)
