2 election officials booked over ballot shortages in local elections

Officials of a joint police-prosecution task force leave the National Election Commission (NEC) headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday, after collecting materials relevant to suspicions that working-level NEC staff manipulated real-time voter turnout figures for the June 3 local elections. Yonhap

Two election officials have been booked over alleged dereliction of duty in failing to prevent ballot shortages that marred the June 3 local elections, legal sources said Tuesday.

A prosecution-police task force plans to question the employees of the Seoul Songpa Ward branch of the National Election Commission (NEC) later in the day, according to the sources. Songpa was one of several districts that reported ballot shortages on Election Day.

The two are the first suspects to have been identified and booked by the task force, though the investigators have questioned other election officials named in complaints.

The task force suspects the Songpa branch employees did not take action even though they may have been aware that certain polling stations could run out of ballot papers and ignored requests for additional ballots.

The task force has also been investigating suspicions that NEC workers manipulated real-time voter turnout figures in their computer system.

Since Thursday, the team has sent investigators to conduct search and seizure operations at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, as well as the NEC's branches in Seoul's Songpa, Gangnam and Seocho wards.