![Ballots from the June 3 local elections [Newsis]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/06/23/news-p.v1.20260623.6ebb54bba5874bcaaca9ffb92af46865_P1.jpg)
The Reform Party said Tuesday that the Songpa-gu election commission in Seoul hastily handed over a key piece of evidence from the June 3 local elections ballot shortage to a disposal company before a court preservation order could take effect. The evidence — a box containing 1,900 ballots from Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong — was dissolved in water heated to several hundred degrees Celsius.
Reform Party floor leader Cheon Ha-ram and Supreme Council member Kim Jeong-cheol, who ran as the party's Seoul mayoral candidate, held a press conference at the National Assembly on Tuesday. They said they had filed a court application for evidence preservation of the ballot box on June 8, but confirmed that the commission transferred the box the following day, June 9, to a paper manufacturer in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, where it was dissolved and destroyed.
Kim said the evidence had been "permanently destroyed before the court's preservation order was even issued." He raised further allegations, saying that according to internal group chat records from within the commission, other polling stations were still returning materials as late as 5 p.m. that day. Common practice would be to collect all materials before disposing of them together, he said. Instead, the commission rushed only the morning batch — which included the box in question — directly to the disposal site at noon.
Kim also said the commission had received a phone call from the court conveying the intent to preserve evidence at the scene, yet took no steps to halt the disposal. He raised the possibility of deliberate evidence destruction and urged authorities to launch a compulsory investigation.
The Reform Party also said the commission rushed to dispose of as much as 7.4 metric tons of election printed materials without leaving so much as a waste transfer certificate.
"The court ordered the commission to submit the waste transfer certificate and electronic records from the official waste disposal tracking system, but the commission replied that neither existed," Kim said. "This is a clear procedural violation and evidence of deliberate destruction."
The Reform Party called on police and the joint investigation headquarters to immediately summon all those involved — including senior officials — for questioning over the alleged deliberate destruction of evidence. It also urged them to conduct a search and seizure to secure any remaining election-related materials before they are lost.
husn7@heraldcorp.com
