South Korea election chief quits over ballot paper shortages

SEOUL: The head of South Korea's National Election Commission (NEC) said on Friday (Jun 5) that he would step down to take responsibility for a shortage of ballot papers in some districts in Wednesday's local elections that disrupted voting and triggered a public outcry.

Rho Tae-ak said there could be no excuse for the failure that harmed the public's interest and commitment to engage in the democratic process, and that understandably raised distrust in the election process.

Rho, who has led the independent commission by convention as a Supreme Court justice as well as its large 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 consequences of its findings.

At 50 polling stations, ballot papers ran out and had to be re-supplied, while voting was disrupted at 22 polling stations due to delays in receiving supplies, an NEC official later told a briefing.

There were about 14,300 voting stations around the country.

Voters waited for hours into the night at some locations after polls officially closed at 6pm (9am GMT) on Wednesday, including at one polling station in the Songpa district of Seoul, where an angry crowd set up a blockade and prevented officials from transporting ballot boxes after voting ended.

Protesters remained in the rain through the night until Friday morning, when hundreds of police were sent in to escort commission officials to retrieve the last two ballot boxes. The vote count officially ended on Friday afternoon.

The NEC official said ballot papers were printed for 50 per cent of eligible voters for Wednesday's election because of the high turnout in two days of early voting last week.

The total number of ballots printed for the three days of voting was 73 per cent of the number of eligible voters, he said.

The final turnout was 63 per cent for the elections to pick mayors, provincial governors, county officers and members of local assemblies.

The ballot paper shortage sparked an angry outcry, with government officials conceding the incident amounted to a failure to safeguard the public's democratic right to vote.

Some right-wing protesters tried to storm a gym where the last ballots from the Songpa district were being counted, demanding a full recount.

Police complaints have been filed against election officials, accusing them of abuse of authority and dereliction of duty, according to media reports.

Others are seeking a judgment by the Constitutional Court for infringing the right to vote, the reports said.