Judge visits senior center polling site, finds ballot storage box missing — election commission says it has no idea where it is

A court visited Polling Station No. 2 in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu — the site of a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections — on Wednesday, only to find that the box containing the ballot papers was no longer there.

Judge Kim Ji-yeon of the Seoul Eastern District Court's Civil Division 51 and court officials arrived at the senior center in the Wooseong apartment complex in Songpa-gu at 3 p.m. Wednesday. The group spent 27 minutes searching the first-floor room known as the "grandfather's room" for the storage box labeled "1,900 printed ballots," but found nothing.

The site had already been cleared of election materials, and Judge Kim and the court party left empty-handed. The senior center had been the focus of a standoff since election night, when citizens gathered to block the removal of ballot boxes. Police moved in on Friday to retrieve the boxes, after which some protesters entered the building — raising the possibility that someone may have taken the ballot storage box in the process.

The National Election Commission said it also does not know the whereabouts of the ballot storage box from the polling station. Reform Party senior member Kim Jeong-cheol, who accompanied the court inspection and filed the original evidence preservation request, told reporters at the scene that no additional evidence had been secured and that the site had already been cleared. "The election commission itself does not know where that ballot storage box has gone, which makes this a fairly serious problem," he said.

The election commission's position, as conveyed to reporters, is that it has no legal obligation to retain the box because it held ballot papers rather than the sealed ballot box itself. Since the on-site inspection yielded nothing, the court may now send formal inquiries to the election commission and other relevant agencies.

The court's evidence preservation order covers the senior center building itself, as well as closed-circuit television footage recorded inside and outside 10 polling stations in Songpa-gu — including footage of ballot box storage — where the ballot shortage occurred. The order also extends to messenger chat logs and text messages exchanged among election commission staff on election day.