A special counsel team on Thursday moved boxes of ballot papers out of a handball arena where they had been kept since June's local elections as part of its investigation into ballot shortages on election day.
Special counsel Lee Tae-han's team removed the ballot boxes from the Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium in southeastern Seoul after conducting an on-site inspection of the 2.47 million ballots for more than 12 hours until past midnight, according to the National Election Commission, the state election watchdog.
Lee's team has been investigating an unprecedented shortage of ballots that occurred on the day of the June 3 local elections, which forced some people to turn back without casting their votes.
All 2.47 million ballots, which had been cast in the southeastern Songpa Ward, were inspected by the special counsel team and placed in some 420 boxes, of which all but 13 were taken to a storage facility managed by the NEC in the capital area, a commission official said.
In accordance with the election law, those ballots will be stored for the duration of the elected officials' terms.
The remaining 13 boxes were taken by the special counsel team, and the ballots inside them will be inspected further based on objections raised by on-site observers. Some of them will be sent to the National Forensic Service for closer examination.
The gymnasium was used as a vote counting center during the elections, but protesters had blocked the ballots' removal since June amid calls for accountability for the shortage and a rerun of the elections.
Lee's team has said the examination will not serve as a recount of the votes and is aimed at determining whether there had been any acts of tampering or forgery.
The handball arena had effectively been sealed by protesters since the vote count in June. Riot police were deployed to the site during Wednesday's inspection to prevent clashes, and no major incidents have been reported.
In addition to on-site observers chosen by the National Assembly, some 100 lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties watched the inspection. Dozens of journalists also took part.
Jang Dong-hyeok, leader of the main opposition People Power Party, staged a sit-in at the arena overnight to stop the ballot boxes from being removed.
"The NEC and the special counsel took the ballot boxes and disappeared as if they were engaging in some operation with the police and fleeing in the middle of the night," Jang told reporters. "The evidence to preserve the people's precious votes has disappeared."
Jang went on to claim the inspection revealed "numerous" instances of election fraud, citing damaged seals on ballot boxes, boxes containing ballots from other districts, and ballots of different colors or layouts. (Yonhap)
