Seoul court orders Jamsil ballot storage box to be preserved as evidence

A Seoul court issued an evidence preservation order for closed-circuit camera footage and the ballot storage box found at a polling station in the Korean capital’s Jamsil-7 neighborhood where protests erupted on Election Day after a ballot shortage meant voting was extended past the 6 pm cutoff.

Not included in the scope of evidence preservation were the ballot boxes at the Seoul Olympic Park handball stadium, where demonstrations are currently being held to call for a “blockade” on the ballot counting facilities.

On Tuesday, Judge Kim Ji-yeon of the Seoul Eastern District Court, partially granted an evidence preservation request by Kim Jeong-cheol, who had run in the Seoul mayoral election on the Reform Party ticket, for ballot storage boxes and other materials.

The scope of the preservation order included ballot storage boxes labeled “1,900 copies printed” from the Jamsil-7 neighborhood’s No. 2 polling station; closed-circuit footage of the polling station; and documents on group chat and messaging service records concerning the ballot shortage that were exchanged among National Election Commission (NEC) employees in Seoul’s Songpa District.

The storage box marked as having “1,900 copies printed” provides evidence indicative of the total number and management of ballots distributed at the polling station, where a shortage of ballots led to voting continuing until 10 pm on Election Day.

The station in question has a total of 3,856 registered voters, and the NEC is reported to have prepared only 1,900 ballots, representing a figure rounded down from 50% of that total (1,928).

But the major focuses of attention — namely the ballot boxes and ballots themselves — were not included as preservation targets.

Demonstrations have been held at Olympic Park and other locations by people protesting the ballot shortage and demanding the preservation of the ballot boxes.

The court was scheduled to conduct an internal and external examination of the second Jamsil-7 polling station at 3 pm on Wednesday to obtain the evidence for which preservation was granted. Through these procedures, it will be checking the status of the ballot storage boxes, sealing them, and preserving them at the Seoul Eastern District Court complex.

Meanwhile, prosecutors and police made plans to set up a joint investigation headquarters at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office to probe the ballot shortage during last week’s elections and the resulting infringement of voter rights.

The joint headquarters is to be chaired by Kim Tae-hun, a third deputy chief prosecutor at the Se