'Double vote' at military unit during June 3 election was no accident, probe finds

A so-called "double vote" that occurred at a military unit during the absentee voting period ahead of the June 3 local elections was not a simple mistake by an individual soldier. A noncommissioned officer who was aware of the error allowed it to stand through deliberate inaction, an investigation has found.

A unit in Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, on May 28 placed envelopes containing absentee ballots for the June 3 local elections in its administrative office, with envelopes bearing the names of multiple soldiers left mixed together. Soldiers were then directed to enter the office individually, mark their ballots and leave.

During this process, one private failed to follow instructions to find the envelope bearing his own name and instead marked the ballot inside an envelope belonging to another soldier that happened to be on top of the pile. The affected soldier subsequently discovered that his own ballot envelope was missing.

When the on-site noncommissioned officer was informed of the situation, he allowed the private who had made the error — not the soldier whose ballot had been used — to cast a second vote. His reasoning was that the private's own absentee envelope was still available. The ballot mistakenly marked under another soldier's name was submitted to the National Election Commission as is.

The military took no meaningful action despite the affected soldier's complaints. He ultimately filed a petition through the government's public grievance portal, and only then was he allowed to vote in person at a polling station. The National Election Commission said the return envelope containing the incorrectly marked absentee ballot would be set aside during the vote count and invalidated.

An Army official said the unit had conducted its own internal investigation and that the Army Inspector General's office would carry out a further probe given the seriousness of the matter. "We will thoroughly investigate the management and oversight of absentee voting, the circumstances in which the erroneous vote occurred, and the actions taken by the supervising officer on the scene," the official said.