Ballot shortage in Seoul's most populous district sparks fraud claims, lawsuit fears

Residents of Songpa-gu — Seoul's most populous district with the largest voter roll — had their suffrage curtailed Wednesday in an unprecedented ballot shortage. The National Election Commission declared voting closed at 11:50 p.m., but two ballot boxes in the district never made it to polling booths. The People Power Party was blunt in its reaction. "This isn't the 19th century — how does something like this even happen?" a party official said.

Songpa-gu has a registered population of 651,469 and an electorate of 565,368, ranking first among Seoul's 25 autonomous districts in both categories, according to the election commission. The district has held that distinction for 18 consecutive years since the resident registration population statistics system was established in 2008.

As of 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, ballots had run out at 14 polling stations across the city: 12 in Songpa-gu's Garak 2-dong, Jamsil 2-dong, Jamsil 4-dong, Jamsil 7-dong and Munjeong 2-dong; one in Gangnam-gu's Cheongdam-dong; and one in Gwangjin-gu's Guui 3-dong. The fact that many of the affected stations are in areas considered conservative strongholds added fuel to opposition claims of election fraud. An election commission official said the agency had printed ballots equivalent to only 50 percent of the total electorate. "Songpa-gu has 146 polling stations in total, and at some of them the number of voters turned out to be higher than anticipated," the official said.

The election commission apologized, saying it "recognizes the gravity of the situation" and would "identify the causes and problems and put measures in place to prevent a recurrence." Observers say the incident is likely to end up in court. Under current election law, not only parties and candidates but also ordinary voters may challenge the validity of an election result.

A precedent from Germany looms over the dispute. In Berlin's Sept. 26, 2021 election, serious irregularities — including ballot shortages and the distribution of incorrect ballots — were discovered, leading courts to invalidate the results and order a re-run. The mayoral outcome and each party's seat count in the legislature both changed as a result. Berlin's Constitutional Court noted at the time that voters had no way of knowing when polling stations would reopen after running out of ballots, making it impossible to determine how many people had simply gone home. The court found that a difference of as few as 100 votes in some constituencies would have been enough to alter seat allocations.

Eom Ki-hong, a professor in the department of political science and diplomacy at Kyungpook National University, said the commission may have followed administrative convention to avoid criticism over wasted ballots, but added that "ballots should have been prepared in line with the number of registered voters." Bae Cheol-ho, political editor at polling firm Realmeter, called it "a failure of demand forecasting that defies understanding," arguing that "the right approach would have been to prepare ballots on the assumption of 100 percent turnout."

The election commission's total budget this year stands at 484.27 billion won (about $320 million), up 120.87 billion won from the previous year to account for local election costs. According to a report on South Korean local government finances published by the National Assembly Budget Office last September, consolidated local government expenditure last year totaled 319.87 trillion won. Assuming that level of spending is sustained over a four-year mayoral and council term, the cumulative figure reaches roughly 1,279.50 trillion won. Divided across the total electorate of 44,649,908 voters, each ballot carries an implied value of about 28.65 million won.

By Yun Ho, Kim Jin and Seo Sang-hyeok