Opposition zeroes in on destroyed ballot box as push for re-election law gains steam

Political fallout is intensifying after the Songpa-gu election commission confirmed it had already destroyed a ballot storage box from the second polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul — a box a court had ordered preserved as key evidence in the ballot shortage controversy surrounding the June 3 local elections.

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok and other opposition figures calling for a full nationwide re-election have trained their fire on the destruction, vowing to push actively for amendments to the Public Official Election Act that would make a re-election legally possible.

At a supreme council meeting Thursday, Jang said the missing box from the second polling station in Jamsil 7-dong was labeled as containing 1,900 ballots, while the number of registered voters at that station was 3,856. "This was evidence proving that the number of ballots fell below 50 percent of the registered voters," he said.

He added that the election commission, which had initially denied any knowledge of the box, later "confessed" to having destroyed it. "They obliterated the key evidence that would have revealed the truth behind the ballot shortage," he said.

Jang also called for legislation requiring that all materials generated during the election process be retained for a set period rather than destroyed. "If a problem this serious has come to light, the best solution is to swiftly declare the election invalid and hold a nationwide re-election," he said.

Rep. Na Kyung-won said the commission's handling of the box amounted to a self-incriminating act. "Disposing of key evidence like trash is no different from confessing to being a criminal," she said. At an emergency forum Sunday, Na said current law and existing court precedent make a re-election virtually impossible in South Korea. "Amending the election law must come first — by doing so, we can open a real path to holding a re-election," she said.

However, "Alternative and Future," a group of younger PPP lawmakers, held a news conference Thursday and pushed back against Jang. While expressing solidarity with the anger of voters in their 20s and 30s, the group said it was "clearly opposed to a nationwide re-election." It also warned that channeling citizens' calls for electoral fairness into "conspiracy theories about a rigged election" was something a leader of a conservative party should never do.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea, including its leadership, has largely maintained a cautious stance, saying whether to hold a re-election should be left to the courts.

Meanwhile, the Songpa-gu election commission has maintained that, unlike ballot boxes containing marked ballots, a plain storage box carries no legal obligation to be preserved.

The commission said it destroyed the box around noon Tuesday — several hours before the Seoul Eastern District Court notified it of a preservation order at around 5:30 p.m. the same day. As a result, when Judge Kim Ji-yeon and other court officials conducted an on-site inspection Wednesday afternoon, they were unable to locate the box and concluded the inspection in roughly 26 minutes.