Papers calling for a re-election are posted at the entrance of the handball arena at Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Sunday, as a protest blockade of the Jamsil vote-counting center continues. Demonstrators are demanding a re-election over the ballot shortage that occurred during the June 3 local elections. [Yonhap]
Papers calling for a re-election are posted at the entrance of the handball arena at Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Sunday, as a protest blockade of the Jamsil vote-counting center continues. Demonstrators are demanding a re-election over the ballot shortage that occurred during the June 3 local elections. [Yonhap]

In the wake of the ballot shortage that marred the June 3 local elections, voices of self-criticism have emerged from within the National Election Commission, with staff saying the incident was "an accident that was bound to happen eventually." Calls for systemic reform are growing as the structural limitations of the early voting system and excessive workloads are identified as root causes.

Sisajournal reported that a stream of posts appeared on the NEC's internal staff message board describing the crushing workload employees endure during every early voting period.

In a Sunday post titled "Confession," one employee wrote that the incident was "not an accident caused by incompetent or irresponsible staff at the relevant commission offices, including Songpa-gu — it was an accident that was bound to go off somewhere, sometime, and this time it just happened to go off there, unluckily." The employee said stable election management is impossible with the current staffing levels and capacity.

The employee listed a series of proposed remedies: abolishing early voting altogether, reducing it to a single day, counting ballots on-site immediately, delaying vote counting until after 9 a.m. the day after election day, eliminating campaign posters, public notices and banners, or amending the law to transfer management of early voting to local governments as their own responsibility. "We must honestly confess that what we can no longer do, we cannot do — that this has exceeded the NEC's limits," the employee wrote.

"Frankly, it's strange that accidents don't happen more often," the employee added. "How much longer do we have to work like this — on edge, anxious, teetering on the brink?" The employee was particularly pointed about the physical toll of election season, writing that "it is only natural that the risk of all kinds of incidents and accidents rises as physical strength and concentration deteriorate under the grueling workload." The employee also recounted nearly dying in a traffic accident while driving drowsy — "more dangerous than drunk driving."

Another employee echoed the call for action, arguing that the NEC should "confess to the public right now that it lacks the capacity to manage early voting, and deliver to the National Assembly, as an organization, the opinion that early voting should be abolished — the sooner the better."

That employee also warned of a broader political risk: "The most important thing is that early voting has become the backbone of election-fraud conspiracy theories, and on top of public disappointment over a poorly run election, the increasingly strident criticism from fringe conspiracy theorists is gaining traction like wildfire."

Some staff also raised concerns about the NEC's internal management structure. One employee suggested that central office staff who have never worked through a full cycle of elections — legislative, local and presidential — should be sent to the field first and brought back to headquarters only after gaining hands-on experience. "Stop sending down pointless paperwork from behind a desk," the employee wrote. "You need to get out there, experience it firsthand, and then work at the central level."

Some observers have also pointed to what they describe as "election-dodging leave" — a pattern in which NEC employees responsible for frontline operations take leave en masse precisely when elections demand the most from them, contributing to overall management failures.

Data submitted to People Power Party lawmaker Kim Seung-su by the NEC on Monday showed that 181 NEC employees were on leave as of May, one month before the local elections — about 6 percent of the commission's total authorized workforce of 3,034. That figure represents a roughly 22 percent increase from the 148 employees on leave at the end of last December.

Kim said the pattern of leave surging ahead of major elections keeps repeating itself, and accused the NEC of failing to take responsibility. "I have repeatedly pointed out poor election management — ballots handled in colanders, votes cast into rice bowls — but the NEC has not only failed to improve, it has not even shown remorse," he said.


bbo@heraldcorp.com