Jeon Han-gil, a former Korean history lecturer, announced he has obtained one of the ballot storage boxes that went missing from Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong and plans to reveal it publicly.
One Way News (formerly Jeon Han-gil News), a media outlet Jeon founded, said in a press release Friday that what is believed to be the original ballot storage box the National Election Commission said it had disposed of was obtained through a tip.
A press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday in front of Gates 1-3 of the Jamsil Handball Gymnasium, where protesters have been staging a blockade of the polling station.
The outlet said the event would be held "to present the evidence directly to the public, formally hand it over to the court, and call on the NEC and investigative authorities to take action."
Judge Kim Ji-yeon of the Seoul Eastern District Court's Civil Division 51 had partially granted a motion for evidence preservation filed by Kim Jeong-cheol, a senior member of the Reform Party who had been a candidate for Seoul mayor, and visited the polling station — but was unable to secure the boxes because they had disappeared.
Because local elections involve a large number of races, most voters received seven ballots — or eight in the case of by-elections. Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong is therefore believed to have had seven ballot storage boxes in total.
A photo of the box Jeon released in advance shows the label "Seoul Mayor Election." An earlier photo taken by Yonhap at the same polling station showed a box labeled "Local District City/Provincial Council Member Election."
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