50 stations used emergency ballots; voting suspended and resumed at 22 sites; election commission vows full review of printing standards and transfer procedures

Yoon Jae-su, head of the National Election Commission's election policy division, holds a public apology briefing at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Wednesday — the main voting day for the June 3 local elections — regarding the ballot shortage. [Yonhap]
Yoon Jae-su, head of the National Election Commission's election policy division, holds a public apology briefing at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Wednesday — the main voting day for the June 3 local elections — regarding the ballot shortage. [Yonhap]

Emergency ballot supplies were dispatched to 67 polling stations across the country during Wednesday's main voting day for the June 3 local elections, the National Election Commission said.

Yoon Jae-su, head of the NEC's election policy division, told reporters at a briefing at the Gwacheon government complex that 67 of the 14,288 polling stations nationwide had run short of ballots and required additional supplies.

Seoul recorded the most shortages with 35 stations affected, followed by Busan and South Gyeongsang Province with eight each, Daegu with seven, Incheon with six and Ulsan with three. Within Seoul, 15 of the affected stations were concentrated in Songpa-gu alone.

Of the 67 stations that received emergency ballots, 17 did not end up using them, while the remaining 50 used the additional supplies during voting.

Voting was temporarily suspended and later resumed at 22 stations while emergency ballots were being transported.

Yoon explained that the NEC had printed ballots at a floor of 50 percent of the registered voter count. He said that as early voting rates had risen steadily in recent elections, stations in high early-voting areas tended to be left with a large surplus of unused ballots. "There was an internal view that reducing the print run was necessary given the costs of collecting, storing and disposing of leftover ballots," he said.

He said the commission had revised its comprehensive election management guidelines and administrative handbook for this election to reflect that internal review and input from local election offices.

Under the revised guidelines, ballots for presidential and National Assembly elections are to be printed at a floor of 60 percent of registered voters, while ballots for local elections — which historically draw lower turnout — are set at a 50 percent floor, with adjustments allowed by constituency or precinct based on local conditions.

On the shortages in Songpa-gu, Yoon said the district's early voting rate had been 23.3 percent, and with a final turnout of around 66 percent, the total ballot supply for Songpa-gu as a whole was not insufficient. "We believe the shortages at some stations were caused by uneven turnout across the 146 individual polling stations within the district," he said.

Yoon apologized again, saying the commission had failed to establish clear procedures for transferring ballots when a shortage arose. "We are sorry for the shortcomings stemming from our failure to prepare specific transfer protocols," he said.

Yoon said the NEC would conduct a comprehensive review of the standards and procedures for calculating ballot print runs and draw up measures to prevent a recurrence. He added that a fact-finding committee to be formed later would investigate the matter further.


mokiya@heraldcorp.com