Court orders probe into missing ballot boxes from Jamsil polling station

A court has partially granted a request for additional evidence preservation concerning missing ballot boxes from a polling station in Jamsil, Seoul. The decision comes after Kim Jeong-cheol, a senior official from the Reform Party, filed a request related to the second polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, where ballot boxes reportedly disappeared.

Judge Kim Ji-yeon of the Eastern Seoul District Court's Civil Division 51 ruled on June 12 to accept parts of Kim's request. The court ordered inquiries to identify the waste disposal company that allegedly received the ballot boxes, the timing of the handover, the actual disposal date, and the current location if the boxes were not destroyed. It also approved requests for related documents and for the court to order the submission of a ledger confirming that 1,900 ballots were prepared for the Jamsil 7-dong polling station.

Furthermore, the court accepted a request for a "document submission order" for CCTV footage showing the entire ballot box and packaging being removed from the polling station. This follows a site inspection by the court on June 10, where the ballot box was not found. The National Election Commission (NEC) stated that the box was disposed of through a waste management company, a claim Kim called "unbelievable."

However, the court rejected a request to inspect ballots and ballot boxes stored at the Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium, which served as the vote counting center. Citing the Public Official Election Act, the court reasoned that the ballots and boxes have a remaining disposal period until the end of the elected officials' terms, thus diminishing the necessity for evidence preservation at this stage, similar to its previous assessment.