Court officials from the Seoul Eastern District Court failed to locate a navy-blue ballot-paper storage box during an on-site verification in Seoul.
The incident raises questions about the integrity of ballot handling and the transparency of the election commission following allegations of a ballot-paper shortage.
The search took place at the second polling station in Jamsil-7-dong. The verification was triggered by a preservation-of-evidence request from Kim Jung-chul, a top official of the Reform Party and a candidate for mayor of Seoul [1, 2].
Kim sought to verify the existence of a specific storage box marked as containing 1,900 sheets of ballot paper [1]. According to the dossier, the label on the box suggested that only 49.3% of the required ballots had been prepared [1]. This figure contradicts the election commission's official statement that 50% of the ballot papers had been prepared [1, 2].
Court officials spent approximately 30 minutes conducting the search of the site [2]. Despite the effort, the box was not found. Kim said there was no additional evidence secured because the site had already been cleared.
The election commission initially said it had no knowledge of the box in question [1, 2]. However, the commission later changed its position, saying that the box had been disposed of [1, 2].
During the verification process, Kim Ji-yeon told reporters to stop filming as the verification began [1]. The discrepancy between the commission's initial denial and its subsequent admission that the box was destroyed remains a central point of the dispute.
“The box was not found and the election commission later said it had been disposed.”
The contradiction in the election commission's statements—first denying knowledge of the box and then claiming it was disposed of—may provide legal grounds for the Reform Party to challenge the administrative process of the local elections. The missing physical evidence of the 49.3% preparation rate prevents the court from independently verifying whether a ballot shortage occurred.
