A ballot paper box, believed to have been sent by the district election commission, found inside Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, after ballot boxes were removed from the site on June 5. [Yonhap]
A ballot paper box, believed to have been sent by the district election commission, found inside Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, after ballot boxes were removed from the site on June 5. [Yonhap]

The ballot paper storage boxes that went missing from Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong — the site of a ballot shortage controversy — had already been destroyed, it was confirmed Wednesday.

The boxes were among the items that Seoul Eastern District Court Judge Kim Ji-yeon of Civil Division 51 and court officials sought to secure through an on-site inspection Wednesday afternoon. The inspection followed a court's acceptance Monday of a request by Reform Party senior member Kim Jeong-cheol to preserve the evidence. The judge ultimately left empty-handed.

An official from the Songpa-gu election commission told Yonhap News Agency that a waste disposal company had collected the boxes around noon Tuesday.

The official added that the court's list of items subject to evidence preservation did not arrive until around 5:30 p.m. that same day — after the boxes had already been discarded and before the commission knew they needed to be kept.

Seoul Eastern District Court Judge Kim Ji-yeon (right) of Civil Division 51 and court officials arrive at a senior residents' lounge in Songpa-gu, Seoul — which served as Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong during the June 3 local elections — to conduct an on-site inspection Wednesday. To the left of Judge Kim is Reform Party senior member Kim Jeong-cheol, who filed the evidence preservation request Monday. [Yonhap]
Seoul Eastern District Court Judge Kim Ji-yeon (right) of Civil Division 51 and court officials arrive at a senior residents' lounge in Songpa-gu, Seoul — which served as Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong during the June 3 local elections — to conduct an on-site inspection Wednesday. To the left of Judge Kim is Reform Party senior member Kim Jeong-cheol, who filed the evidence preservation request Monday. [Yonhap]

"Had we known a preservation request had been filed, we would have kept them since they could be controversial," the official said. "But with returns coming in from polling stations Monday and Tuesday, trash was piling up, and we were disposing of items we had no obligation to keep through a waste company in between."

The official said the boxes are used solely for the initial distribution of ballots to polling stations and are typically discarded by the stations themselves. "There was absolutely no intent to destroy evidence," the official said.

The boxes have been cited as one of several items pointing to the election commission's mismanagement of election operations.

On June 5, police deployed more than 1,000 officers to remove two ballot boxes from Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong, 35 hours after voting had ended. Protesters then entered the polling station and searched through items the election commission had left behind.

The outside of a ballot paper box found at the scene was labeled: "Printed ballot count: 1,900 sheets, Box 1 of 1."

The polling station had 3,856 registered voters, meaning ballots had been prepared for only 49.3 percent of eligible voters — falling short of the guideline requiring at least 50 percent of ballots to be printed.

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