Opening of ballot boxes during the June 3rd local elections [Photo = Yonhap News] 

It has been confirmed belatedly that during the local elections four years ago, nearly 500 ballots were left uncounted and completely ignored.

The National Election Commission (NEC) was aware of the discrepancy during the counting process, yet concluded the count without investigating the cause. It was further revealed that even after discovering the omitted votes, the commission swept the incident under the rug, claiming that it "would not affect the election results."

Where did the 497 missing votes go?

During the 8th Nationwide Simultaneous Local Elections held in June 2022, the results in Gaebong 2-dong, Guro-gu, Seoul showed 10,384 votes cast for the Seoul Mayoral race, while the vote count for the Superintendent of Education, held on the same day, was only 9,887. A staggering 497 votes cast in the same district had simply vanished.

An investigation by the Seoul City Election Commission confirmed that while the ballots had been removed from the ballot box, they were left uncounted, having never been fed into the ballot sorting machine. The greater problem, however, was the NEC's handling of the situation.

Despite being aware of a clear discrepancy in the number of voters during the counting process, the Seoul City Election Commission finalized the official counting procedure without verifying the exact reason for the error.

It was only the day after the election that the commission reviewed CCTV footage and discovered the 497 uncounted ballots sitting in a transport basket. Although the National Election Commission was also briefed on this serious oversight, it took no action, such as correcting the results or performing a recount.

"No impact on the outcome, so we followed protocol?" A preposterous excuse

The election commission offered an absurd justification for failing to take any follow-up measures even after the ballots were belatedly discovered.

An official from the Seoul City Election Commission claimed that, following internal discussions, they decided against action because "the votes would not have affected the outcome of the election, and there are no clear legal provisions to conduct a recount after the counting process has officially concluded."

In the end, the voices of 497 voters who exercised their precious right to vote evaporated, as their ballots were never even opened.

With evidence increasingly emerging that the election commission's suspicious behavior and complacent responses surrounding recent local elections have been repeating for years, public trust in the entire election management system is plummeting to new lows.

Reporter Lim Yo-hee