South Korea: Investigators to question 4 more election workers over ballot shortage

Seoul, June 25 (IANS) A joint police and prosecution team in South Korea on Thursday was set to question a group of civil servants who worked at polling stations that experienced ballot shortages during the June 3 local elections, legal sources said.

Four officials have been asked to appear before the team, the sources said, as part of an investigation into the ballot shortage that temporarily suspended voting at 26 polling stations across the nation.

The officials are said to have distributed ballots at two polling stations in Seoul that ran out of ballot papers. The team plans to question them about the election watchdog’s response measures to the shortages, reports Yonhap news agency.

The team is probing allegations that the National Election Commission hastily decided to reduce the number of printed ballots and failed to respond effectively to ballot shortages on election day.

The questioning session comes a day after the joint investigation team raided the offices of 12 election commission officials who oversaw polling stations in Seoul that experienced ballot shortages.

Meanwhile, protesters demanding a rerun of the elections continued to rally outside the Olympic Park Handball Stadium in southern Seoul for the 21st day on Thursday.

Protesters have blocked access to the stadium, which served as a ballot-counting site during the elections, since June 5, to prevent the removal of ballot boxes inside.

While the election watchdog has apologised for the ballot shortages, it says they do not warrant a rerun under the election law.

As protesters continued to rally, Morse Tan, a Korean American scholar known for making claims of election fraud in South Korea, held a press conference outside the stadium.

Tan, who faces a police probe over allegations of defaming President Lee Jae Myung, claimed that the president should resign to take responsibility for what he claimed was election fraud.

Tan added that he was willing to undergo police questioning after he failed to appear for a scheduled questioning session earlier in the day.

Tan made claims at a press conference in the United States last year that Lee was involved in a murder case as a teenager and had been sent to a juvenile detention centre for the crime.

–IANS

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