Blind spots found in CCTV coverage at Olympic Park ballot storage site

The National Election Commission has acknowledged that some areas inside and around the ballot storage site at the handball gymnasium in Olympic Park, Songpa-gu, Seoul — sealed off by protests since a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections — are not captured by closed-circuit television cameras.

In documents submitted Tuesday to Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the National Assembly's special committee on the parliamentary investigation into the June 3 local election ballot shortage, the NEC said the CCTV cameras covering the ballot storage area are fixed units that cannot rotate, and that some blind spots exist within their coverage range.

Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, which manages the CCTV system, also acknowledged the existence of blind spots in documents it submitted to Yoon.

The foundation said three cameras are trained on the corridor leading to the office where ballots and other evidence are stored, and that all three have been operating around the clock since election day, June 3.

However, it added that because all three cameras are fixed, blind spots are unavoidable, and that no cameras are installed inside the office where the ballot boxes are kept. The foundation also said no camera covers the entrance to that office.

Regarding the recorded footage, the foundation said the NEC has not viewed the recordings and that the footage is being preserved separately.

The NEC said footage is retained for 30 days from the date of recording, and that the managing body backed up footage from after election day at the request of the joint investigative team.

Two below-ground offices at the handball gymnasium currently hold approximately 380 ballot boxes from across Songpa-gu, along with 2.47 million ballot papers and voting and counting records, none of which have been removed.

Yoon said committee members had flagged the CCTV operation and blind spot issue at the ballot storage site during the first on-site inspection, and that the documents now submitted confirmed the cameras are fixed units with blind spots. "Electoral integrity begins with rigorous management," he said. "At Tuesday's second on-site inspection of the NEC and the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission, we will closely examine whether the security and management systems for the ballot storage facility have been operating properly."