Jo Jeon-hyuk, a candidate for Seoul Superintendent of Education in the June 3rd local elections, holding a press conference at the National Assembly Communication Center. [Photo=Hanmi Ilbo]

 Following the shortage of ballots at the actual polling stations for the June 3rd local elections, a claim has now been raised that a candidate without the eligibility to be elected ran in the election, and the Election Commission failed to detect this.

The Election Commission, which is facing criticism for failing to guarantee the right to vote, is now confronted with suspicions of failing to properly verify even the basic qualifications of candidates.

Jo Jeon-hyuk, a candidate for Seoul Superintendent of Education, held a press conference at the National Assembly Communication Center on the 8th and urged for a re-election and the accountability of those responsible, stating, "The fairness of the Seoul Superintendent of Education election has been severely undermined due to the Election Commission's failure to verify candidate qualifications and its mismanagement of the election."

Jo claimed that Yoon Ho-sang was listed as an in-house director and editor of the online newspaper Eduin News until election day, and that the Election Commission's failure to identify this during the candidate registration phase was a significant management failure.

Hanmi Ilbo confirmed through an investigation of government agencies that Yoon was registered as an editor for Eduin News.

As a result of our verification with the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Culture and Arts Division on the 8th, candidate Yoon Ho-sang was registered as the editor in the periodical registration status for Eduin News, and there were no records of a change of editor application being received.

Song Geun-jae, an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Culture and Arts Division, stated in a phone call with this newspaper, "Yoon Ho-sang is registered as the editor of Eduin News, and there are no records of a change application being received."

This means that Yoon registered as a candidate without resigning 90 days prior to the public election, and the Election Commission accepted this.

Periodical Registration Status [Photo=Screenshot from the Ministry of Culture website]

The Election Commission's verification of candidate qualifications in the Superintendent of Education election is not a mere formality.

Whether a candidate holds party affiliation is the most basic check, and in this election, a candidate withdrew their candidacy due to party affiliation issues.

For journalists, their status as publisher and editor can also be confirmed through the periodical registration ledger or online as basic information.

Bottom of the Eduin News homepage

Given that the Public Official Election Act mandates that media publishers, managers, editors, reporters, and broadcasters must resign before election day, if the Election Commission did not even check the registration ledger, this cannot be seen as a simple mistake but rather a collapse of the candidate qualification review system.

The Public Official Election Act includes a mechanism to invalidate a candidate's registration if it is discovered after registration that they do not have the eligibility to be elected. It also stipulates restrictions on candidacy, requiring individuals in certain positions to resign 90 days before election day.

Considering that the election day for the Seoul Superintendent of Education was June 3rd, the legal resignation deadline was March 5th.

Therefore, the issue narrows down to whether the Election Commission verified this at the candidate registration stage.

As the Seoul Metropolitan Government's confirmation has established that candidate Yoon was listed as the editor in the periodical registration and that no change application was submitted, an explanation from the Election Commission on the procedures it followed to review candidate qualifications has become unavoidable.

Jo's camp is linking this issue to a claim for election invalidation (re-election).

Candidate Yoon received 727,188 votes in this election. In contrast, the first-place candidate, Jung Geun-sik, received 1,509,528 votes, and the second-place candidate, Jo Jeon-hyuk, received 1,174,624 votes. The difference in votes between the top two candidates was 334,904 votes. Candidate Yoon's vote count is more than double the difference between the first and second place.

Jo argued, "If candidate qualifications had been properly verified, the citizens of Seoul would have experienced a completely different election. A candidate with questionable qualifications claimed to be center-right and completed the race, leading to a large-scale fragmentation of conservative votes."

He questioned, "If this is not an distortion of the election results, what is it?"

The controversy over candidate qualifications, coupled with the ballot shortage incident, is further intensifying the calls for the Election Commission's responsibility.

The National Election Commission claimed that on election day, there were 67 polling stations nationwide that required additional ballot deliveries due to shortages, of which 50 actually experienced ballot shortages, and 22 had voting temporarily suspended.

Jo stated, "It is difficult to consider an election where both the failure to verify candidate qualifications and the infringement of suffrage occurred simultaneously as a normal election."

Jo demanded that the Election Commission publicly disclose the entire process of candidate qualification review, the circumstances under which Yoon Ho-sang's registration was permitted, conduct a fact-finding investigation into the responsible parties, and establish measures to prevent recurrence.

He urged law enforcement agencies to "investigate whether candidate Yoon violated the Public Official Election Act and the dereliction of duty by Election Commission officials."

The political and administrative implications of this controversy are significant. Polling stations lacked ballots, and at the candidate registration stage, a dispute arose over the verification of eligibility to be elected.

The issue of the Election Commission's responsibility has expanded beyond election management failure to encompass the entire candidate qualification review system.

The controversy surrounding the Seoul Superintendent of Education election is no longer just a grievance raised by a losing candidate; it has escalated into an issue questioning the legitimacy of election procedures and the Election Commission's fundamental verification capabilities.

Jo stated, "Democracy stands on the legitimacy of procedures, not just results. An election where procedures are broken cannot gain the trust of the people."

He added, "A re-election must be held to restore the right to choose for the citizens of Seoul. I will not stop until the truth is revealed."