'People are in line … 10 ballots left': The chaos inside Songpa-gu polling stations

By Joo So-hyun, The Herald Business

"Garak 2-dong Polling Station 3 — 90 ballots left. People are in line."

At around 3:39 p.m. on June 3, an election clerk at Polling Station 3 in Garak 2-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, posted that message to a group chat. About 20 minutes later, at around 4:07 p.m., he sent another urgent message: "Garak 2-dong Station 3 — when are you leaving? We have 10 ballots left." Five minutes after that, at around 4:12 p.m., a final message read: "Garak 2-dong Station 3 — voting suspended." The clerk did not appear in the group chat again that day.

Garak 2-dong Polling Station 3 was not alone in running out of ballots. The coordinator for Jamsil 4-dong posted at around 3:35 p.m.: "Jamsil 4-dong Station 5 — fewer than 100 ballots remaining. Please send support quickly." About 30 minutes later, at around 4:11 p.m., came the follow-up: "Jamsil 4-dong Station 5 — no ballots, voting suspended."

Starting with Jamsil 4-dong Polling Station 5 and Garak 2-dong Polling Station 3, suspensions spread across the district — Munjeong 2-dong Polling Station 2 at around 4:38 p.m. and Jamsil 7-dong Polling Station 2 at around 4:41 p.m., among others.

The full account of the scramble at Songpa-gu polling stations — thrown into severe disarray by ballot shortages during the June 3 local elections — was made public Thursday, at the final briefing of the Committee to Investigate the Truth Behind the Ballot Shortage, which concluded its 10-day inquiry.

Committee Chair Jo Hyeon-uk said the group quoted the group chat messages directly "to show concretely how the reporting chain was actually functioning and how the crisis was being managed." He added that the messages from the chat shared by dong-level coordinators and clerks showed ballot shortages were already a concern as early as noon.

The concentration of ballot shortages in Songpa-gu stemmed from the district preparing fewer ballots than the required minimum print ratio of 50 percent — 60 percent for Jamsil 3-dong and 4-dong. The district's projected electorate was 564,438, but the number of serially numbered ballots printed came to only 280,800, or 49.74 percent, the investigation found. Adding 2,000 unnumbered ballots brought the total to 282,800, just barely clearing the 50.2 percent threshold.

The question of whether ballots carried serial numbers proved central to the day's chaos. Article 150, Paragraph 10 of the Public Official Election Act requires that serial numbers be printed on ballots. To comply, Songpa-gu election commission staff had to hand-write serial numbers on each unnumbered ballot — a process that ultimately delayed delivery to polling stations.

Chair Jo said Songpa-gu election commission staff were so occupied with personally delivering the numbered ballots to polling stations that they could not respond quickly to the urgent requests from dong coordinators and clerks. "Even the Songpa-gu election commission's administrative director was tied up writing serial numbers," he said, adding that "the crisis response and reporting chain had completely broken down."

It was not until around 4:46 p.m. — after voting had already been suspended at multiple polling stations — that the Songpa-gu and Seoul Metropolitan election commissions decided to distribute the unnumbered ballots to polling stations as they were. Only after 5 p.m. did they put belated contingency measures in place: having staff write serial numbers on-site, using leftover ballots from nearby stations when unnumbered supplies ran out, and deploying early-voting ballot printers.

In its final report, the committee recommended referring 12 people for investigation, including three Songpa-gu Election Commission officials — among them its chair — four from the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission, and former National Election Commission Chair Noh Tae-ak and Secretary-General Heo Cheol-hun, along with others. The committee also proposed 10 measures to prevent a recurrence, including raising the minimum ballot print ratio to 70 percent, minimizing the use of unnumbered ballots, and overhauling operational manuals to focus on on-site incident response.

The committee also called for sweeping institutional reform of the National Election Commission, including converting the NEC chair — currently a part-time post customarily held concurrently by a Supreme Court justice — into a full-time position, and bringing the commission under the Board of Audit and Inspection's oversight. Both changes would require amending the NEC Act and, in some cases, the Constitution — proposals that have already been raised in political circles.

The Democratic Party is discussing electoral reform centered on converting the NEC chair to a full-time post, expanding the number of standing commissioners, and allowing Board of Audit and Inspection audits. The People Power Party has gone further, calling for a sweeping overhaul that would place the NEC under the Ministry of Interior and Safety or reduce it to a non-standing body — changes that would amount to an effective dismantling of the commission.

Some warn, however, that hasty reform could undermine the institutional neutrality the NEC was built to protect — hard-won after decades of government-manipulated and fraudulent elections. The more urgent priority, this view holds, is establishing a proper crisis-response and reporting system to prevent another ballot shortage, rather than restructuring the entire organization.

Lee Jun-han, a professor of political science and diplomacy at Incheon National University, said proposals such as making the NEC chair a full-time post and subjecting the commission to external audits "have come up every time a scandal hits — the 'basket voting' incident during COVID-19, the nepotism hiring scandal, the removal of ballots from a polling station during the last presidential election." He said the response should not be driven by frustration. "We need to take the NEC's historical context into account and come up with realistic alternatives," he said.