The special counsel investigating allegations involving the National Election Commission finished an on-site inspection of the Olympic Park Handball Stadium in Seoul, where June 3 local election ballots have been kept, after about 12 hours. According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the team selected a substantial number of ballots needing further analysis and will have them forensically examined later.
The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that the inspection began at 11:49 a.m. on the 28th and ended at 12:36 a.m. on the 29th. The venue is the Olympic Park Handball Stadium in Seoul's Songpa District, used as the counting site for the June 3 local elections. Special Counsel Lee Tae-han said afterward that ballots judged to need more analysis had been selected for detailed examination later.
광고 문의 · 300×250What was examined, and how
The team went through about 2.47 million ballots by eye and photographed suspicious ones, the paper said. It analyzed CCTV footage to check for unauthorized entry and examined whether sorting machines and other counting equipment could have been hacked. About 110 counsel staff, roughly 500 commission employees and 48 police riot units of about 3,300 officers took part.
The stadium had been blockaded for 146 days by protesters alleging election fraud, which had prevented the ballot boxes from being moved. The inspection came after that long standoff, which drew wide attention. The protesters' own position was not covered in the reporting checked for this article.
Opposition observers' objection and next steps
After People Power Party observers asked for a recount, the counsel accepted their objections and included those ballots in a first round of selection, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported. The counsel plans to send many of the selected ballots and the ballot boxes as a whole to the National Forensic Service for final analysis. Responsibility for storing the inspected ballots remains with the Songpa District election commission, and the counsel's authority covers only the ballots it selected.
The counsel said he would neither set aside unverified concerns nor reject them without evidence, and that conclusions should follow verified facts. How long the analysis will take and when results will be released have not been made public.