Jang Dong-hyeok calls for legal fix to prevent evidence destruction; Na Kyung-won says election law must be amended to allow re-election
Political fallout is intensifying after the Songpa-gu Election Commission confirmed it had already destroyed a ballot storage box from Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong, Seoul — a box a court had ordered preserved as key evidence in the ballot shortage controversy that erupted during the June 3 local elections.
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok and other opposition figures calling for a nationwide re-election have trained their fire on the destruction and say they will actively pursue amendments to the Public Official Election Act to make a re-election legally possible.
At a supreme council meeting Thursday, Jang said the missing box from Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong was labeled as containing 1,900 ballots, while the number of registered voters at that station was 3,856. "This was the evidence that would have proven ballots fell short of even 50 percent of the voter roll," he said. He added that the election commission, which had initially denied any knowledge of the box, later "confessed it had been destroyed," calling the act "the destruction of the core evidence needed to uncover the truth behind the ballot shortage."
Jang also said legislation was needed to require that all materials generated during an election be retained for a set period rather than discarded. "If a problem this serious has come to light, the best solution is to swiftly declare the election invalid and hold a nationwide re-election," he said.
Assembly member Na Kyung-won said the commission's handling of the box amounted to a self-incriminating act. "Disposing of the key evidence needed to establish the truth as if it were garbage is no different from confessing to a crime," she said. At an emergency forum June 8, Na had argued that under the current Public Official Election Act and existing court precedent, a re-election was virtually impossible in South Korea. "Amending the election law must come first," she said. "By revising the law, we intend to open a realistic path to holding a re-election."
However, "Alternative and Future," a group of younger PPP lawmakers, pushed back at a press conference Thursday. While expressing solidarity with the anger of voters in their 20s and 30s, the group said it was "clearly opposed to a nationwide re-election" and directed criticism at Jang, saying that tainting the civic demand for electoral fairness with "conspiracy theories about a rigged election is something the leader of a conservative party must never do."
The Democratic Party of Korea, including its leadership, has largely maintained a cautious stance, saying any decision on a re-election should be left to the courts.
The Songpa-gu Election Commission, for its part, has maintained that unlike ballot boxes containing marked ballots, plain storage boxes carry no legal preservation requirement.
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