Thousands protest in South Korea over ballot shortages in regional elections, call for 're-run'

Thousands of South Koreans took to the streets Saturday in Seoul, calling for a "re-run" of local elections held across the country earlier this week because there were not enough ballots for voters.

Thousands crowded the SK Olympic Handball Stadium, where votes were counted Wednesday that would elect mayors, provincial governors, county officers and local assembly members. An estimated 10,000 people had gathered at the protests as of 5:30 p.m. (0830 GMT), according to unofficial police estimates, reported by Yonhap news agency. 

Other reports said the crowd at Jamsil Olympic Park had surpassed 40,000, according to an X post by Alfred J Kim, U.S. Department of State Appointee to the East-West Center Board of Governors.

Protests also occurred on Friday night, with more than 6,000 people at the SK Olympic Handball Stadium site. 

“Election re-run!” they chanted and held up placards with South Korean flags. Most protesters were in their 20s and 30s, who said they had gathered at the stadium after seeing YouTube videos and social media posts regarding the vote counts, according to Reuters.

Fifty out of 14,300 polling stations had run out of ballots, temporarily suspending voting at 22 polling stations, according to South Korea's National Election Commission (NEC). 

Protesters on Friday also sealed off the Jamsil 7-dong No. 2 polling station in Songpa-gu, Seoul, lasting two nights and three days, protesting the shortage and calling for a rerun of the June 3 local elections. They alleged that the election had been compromised and blocked election commission officials from moving two ballot boxes, containing about 2,000 votes, out of the polling station to the counting center.

The protesters also formed a human barrier around the ballot boxes to block the count from moving forward. More than 10 mobile police units were deployed to disperse them, according to the Korea Times. Across social media, police were seen forcibly dispersing protesters to remove remaining ballot boxes at the polling station. 

Unarmed police forces forcibly moving in to break the blockade and remove demonstrators have reportedly resulted in injuries.

The leader of the National Election Commission said Thursday, a day after the election, that he would resign and take responsibility for the shortages.

“To ensure this never happens again, we will install a fact-finding committee as swiftly as possible to identify the fundamental causes, problems, and response process that led to the ballot paper shortage,” NEC Chairman Roh Tae-ak said.  

The Democratic Party has secured a victory in the local elections and parliamentary by-elections, winning 12 out of 16 mayoral and gubernational seats, including the mayoralty in the traditionally conservative Busan, while the main opposition party (People Power Party) kept its Seoul mayoral seat, according to Yonhap. 

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok told reporters that it was “an election we cannot recognize.”  

“Voters' suffrage has been infringed, and we cannot even know how many people had their suffrage infringed," he said during a protest visit to the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission. 

Prior to the elections, on April 28, Academic Council Member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Tara O testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “Korean elections, especially since the April 2020 elections, have been mired in election fraud controversies.” 

She said that the leftist Democratic Party of Korea and the Lee Jae-myung administration were shifting the country away from a freedom-based market economy to a socialist system.

“The massive number of Koreans who have been protesting – holding up the ROK and US flags, against CCP influence, against those in power who are steering the country toward socialism – are concerned," she also said. 

Meanwhile, President Lee Jae-myung expressed “deep regret” over the ballot shortage and said those responsible for the failure of the election administration would be held to account. 

The National Election Commission (NEC) said Thursday that the ballot shortage in Seoul would not constitute grounds to postpone the election or to revoke it.