Jang Dong-hyeok calls Seoul election 'tainted,' demands halt to vote count

By Jung Seok-jun, The Herald Business

Jang Dong-hyeok, the People Power Party's standing election campaign committee chairman, declared Wednesday that the Seoul portion of the 9th nationwide local elections was "already a tainted election" and demanded a suspension of the vote count, citing a ballot shortage that struck parts of the city.

Speaking at a press conference at PPP headquarters in Yeouido, Jang said voters who cast ballots after 6 p.m. had already been exposed to live vote-count broadcasts, raising the possibility that those broadcasts influenced how they voted. "That possibility cannot be ruled out," he said.

"This election in Seoul was one in which voters' right to vote — their right to political participation — was seriously violated," Jang said. "The fairness of the vote has already been broken. A tainted election is void."

He also said turnout had been running higher than in the previous election since morning, and expressed disbelief that election authorities had failed to prepare enough ballots. "The increase in turnout compared to the last election did not exceed 10 percent," he said. "Yet the number of ballots prepared did not even include a 10 percent surplus over the previous election. That is simply incomprehensible."

Jang added that turnout in the election before last had reached 60 percent. "At the very least, authorities should have prepared enough ballots using that 60 percent figure — not the 50 percent from the immediately preceding election — as their baseline," he said.

He went on to say that the National Election Commission had taken no action despite being warned of a potential ballot shortage three hours before it materialized. "As a result, there will be voters who gave up waiting and did not cast their ballots," he said. "There will also be voters who, after hearing news that ballots had run out or that people had waited for hours and left, decided not to go to the polls at all."

Turning to the election commission directly, Jang said it must issue a clear account of the facts that the public can accept and take legal responsibility for its actions. "If the problem of poor election management is not completely rooted out, we will inevitably face social conflict every election cycle, and the situation in which society bears those costs will keep repeating itself," he said.