![Vote counting during the rigged March 15, 1960 election. [National Archives of Korea]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/06/05/news-p.v1.20260605.12577bbe64fc4ea0bf89df6d9c7de3a7_P1.jpg)
An unprecedented ballot shortage on the main voting day of the 9th nationwide local elections has prompted widespread online comparisons to a rigged-election scene from the popular drama series "Yaein Sidae," which aired more than two decades ago.
A clip from episode 121 of the SBS drama series "Yaein Sidae" began circulating across social media Friday, drawing attention for its striking resemblance to the ballot shortage caused by the National Election Commission.
The scene, which aired in September 2003, depicts political gangster Im Hwa-su, played by Choi Jun-yong, conspiring with his subordinates to steal ballots ahead of the rigged March 15, 1960 election. When Im announces that the Liberal Party has arranged for 40 percent of the total votes to be cast through early voting, one subordinate asks: "We'd have to divert that many ballots away from voters — won't people complain if they don't receive their ballot?" Im sneers in reply: "What would those ignorant people know? If the ballots don't come out, they'll just think they didn't come out."
The fictional Liberal Party scheme — deliberately withholding ballots to disenfranchise voters — has drawn bitter laughs online as it mirrors the ballot shortages reported at polling stations in parts of the June 3 local elections, 66 years later.
![People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok speaks through a megaphone at the Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Songpa-gu, Seoul, where ballot counting for Jamsil 7-dong was underway Friday. [Yonhap]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/06/05/rcv.YNA.20260605.PYH2026060504770001301_P1.jpg)
Meanwhile, ballot shortages on Wednesday — the main voting day for the 9th nationwide local elections — halted voting for some residents and forced extended polling hours at 15 stations: 11 in Songpa-gu, two in Gangnam-gu, one in Gwangjin-gu and one in Dongjak-gu. Two polling stations in Incheon's Yeonsu-gu also ran short of ballots and required emergency resupply.
At around 10:40 a.m. Thursday, Kim Beom-jin, secretary-general of the Seoul Election Commission, was grabbed by the collar outside Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu — the Woori Apartment senior center — where angry voters had protested the previous day's ballot shortage. When Kim told citizens blocking the ballot boxes that counting had to be completed before the voting process could be formally closed, and that Seoul Mayor-elect Oh Se-hoon could not be declared the winner until then, one protester shot back: "There's no left or right when it comes to this — we need a re-election. Do you think the people are animals?"
The election commission said Thursday that a postponement of voting under the Public Official Election Act does not constitute grounds for a re-election.
The commission's secretary-general was grabbed by the collar at the Jamsil 7-dong polling station after visiting the site of the ballot shortage, where protesters demanding answers over election fraud allegations had gathered.
jshan@heraldcorp.com
