Photo : YONHAP News
A box considered to be a major piece of evidence related to the ballot shortages that occurred during last Wednesday’s local elections is apparently missing.
On Wednesday, Judge Kim Ji-yeon of the Seoul Eastern District Court visited a voting center in Jamsil in Seoul’s Songpa District and attempted to secure the box, which had been used to store unmarked ballots before voting started.
The visit came a day after Judge Kim ordered the box to be preserved as evidence, accepting some but not all of the requests submitted by the Reform Party’s Supreme Council member Kim Jeong-cheol, who ran for mayor of Seoul last week.
An official from the National Election Commission told KBS that the election watchdog picked up the box and is now trying to locate it.
In a photograph taken Friday, a box believed to be the one the judge was looking for had a label marked “one-thousand-900 ballots,” which is enough for 49-point-three percent of all eligible voters in the district.
The election watchdog’s rules stipulate that each polling station must have enough ballots for at least 50 percent of all eligible voters.