'In ARS primaries, receiving the call is the ballot itself'
PPP approves Yun Jae-bok as Yongin-gap organization committee chair
People Power Party Supreme Council member Yang Hyang-ja said Monday she is not rejecting the outcome of the Yongin-gap district committee chair primary election, clarifying that her call for an investigation targets the overall automated response system (ARS) voting process — not the result itself.
Appearing on KBS Radio's Jeongyeok Sisa that day, Yang said she had accepted the primary result as a candidate in the Yongin-gap race. "If a clear error occurred, we should look into why it happened, whether the party was insufficiently prepared, and what measures should be taken to prevent a recurrence," she said.
She added that a by-election was "a separate matter to consider afterward," and said it was only natural to investigate the entire process starting from the first round, given that the party itself had acknowledged errors in it. "I find it unfortunate that I keep being framed as someone who is rejecting the result," she said.
Yang said the entire primary system needed to be examined. "In the case of Yongin-gap, if only about 1,500 of 4,155 people responded and the rest could not, we need to find out why," she said. "In an ARS primary, receiving the call itself is the ballot."
She said many people had effectively not received their ballots and called for a full factual investigation. "Our party, which champions the protection of voting rights, must conduct an accurate survey of the actual situation — not just in Yongin-gap, but across all districts, where many similar complaints have come in," she said, calling for a comprehensive nationwide review.
Yang also said she herself had failed to receive the ARS call in time during the runoff. "The party's organization bureau said they called three times, but I did not pick up once," she said. "I ultimately received the call at 4:15 p.m. and cast my vote."
"I don't even know whether some people missed the call after just one attempt, or whether the deadline passed after two or three tries," she said. "That is why I said an investigation into the facts is necessary."
On Secretary-General Jeong Hui-yong's explanation that the issue stemmed from a technical problem with a telecommunications carrier, and party leader Jang Dong-hyeok's characterization of her actions as an attempt to destabilize the leadership, Yang said she was "quite surprised" and viewed both responses as "largely emotional."
"If there was a flaw in the procedure or the system, shouldn't we address it precisely?" Yang said. "Simply burying the problem does not help the party."
At the supreme council meeting held at the National Assembly that day, Yang also said the goal of a primary election is to broaden the party's reach. "That is how we get closer to the ultimate purpose of a primary — winning the election," she said.
"There is a saying that a crisis arises not from a setback itself, but from how that setback is handled," she said. "When I raised the issue, I expected the party to seriously reflect on the errors that occurred during the primary."
"How is the party handling this setback right now? Who is the one turning a setback into a crisis?" she said, once again calling for an investigation into the primary process.
Meanwhile, the supreme council approved Yun Jae-bok as the organization committee chair for Yongin-gap at the same meeting.
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