Yonsei University students condemn ballot shortage as attack on democracy's foundations

Conservative citizens surround the second polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Thursday, chanting slogans alleging election fraud after voting hours were extended due to a shortage of ballots. [Newsis]

Students at Yonsei University took to their campus online community to condemn an unprecedented ballot shortage that left voters unable to cast ballots during the 9th nationwide local elections, TV Chosun reported.

A statement was posted on the Yonsei University student community late Wednesday calling out the suspension of voting at major polling stations across Seoul and urging the student council to take action.

Kim Min-su (center), a supreme council member of the People Power Party, shouts slogans calling the election fraudulent and demanding it be nullified at a protest rally Thursday morning in front of the National Election Commission in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, over the ballot shortage. [Newsis]

The authors of the statement said ballots ran out at numerous polling stations across Seoul's Songpa-gu, Gangnam, Gwangjin and Dongjak-gu, forcing voters to leave without casting their ballots. "This is not a simple administrative error," they wrote. "It is an incident in which state incompetence violated citizens' right to vote and shook the very foundations of democracy."

The statement also cited the preamble of the Yonsei University Student Council constitution, saying the council "has an obligation to defend the rights of Yonsei students against the contradictions and oppression that persist in Korean society and the university."

In the early hours of Thursday, as vote counting proceeds in the 9th nationwide local elections, citizens alleging election fraud gather outside the Daegu campaign office of Kim Boo-kyum, the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for Daegu mayor, in Dalseo-gu, chanting slogans demanding a halt to the count in connection with the ballot shortage at some polling stations, including those in Songpa-gu, Seoul. [Newsis]

The students demanded that the emergency committee chair of the Yonsei University Student Council immediately convene an emergency general assembly to address the ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections and discuss a response.

They added that if the emergency committee refused, the expanded steering committee — the student body's deliberative organ — should withhold approval of the emergency committee leadership.

A Google Form is currently collecting signatures from enrolled Yonsei University students in support of the demand.

한표당 2800만원인데…‘서울 최다 인구’ 송파구 참정권 빼앗겼다

[헤럴드경제=윤호·김진·서상혁 기자] 서울에서 최다 인구·최다 유권자를 보유한 송파구 주민들의 참정권이 ‘투표용지 부족’이라는 초유의 사태로 침해받는 일이 벌어

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