Election chief offers to resign over local election ballot shortages

Rho Tae-ak, chairman of the National Election Commission, bows his head during a press conference on ballot shortages in Wednesday's local elections at the commission's headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Friday. Yonhap

National Election Commission (NEC) Chairman Roh Tae-ak offered to resign Friday to take responsibility for ballot shortages during Wednesday's local elections, amid sharp criticism and a police investigation into the nation's top election body.

On Election Day, 14 polling stations in Seoul ran out of ballot papers, forcing hundreds of voters to wait for hours past the 6 p.m. ballot closing time.

"The ballot shortage incident damaged the public's strong interest in local self-government and their active expression of political will through voting," Roh said in his public apology made at the NEC headquarters in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province.

"I feel both devastated and infinitely responsible as the NEC chairman for a situation that has undermined public trust in election management and led to broader distrust in the electoral process," he added.

He stressed that the commission would fully cooperate with all procedures aimed at determining its responsibility for the incident, including a parliamentary investigation.

"If the findings show that there are responsibilities I must bear, I will never seek to avoid them," he said.

Roh said the NEC will establish a fact-finding committee as quickly as possible to identify the root cause of the ballot shortage, examine what went wrong and how it was handled, and devise measures to prevent recurrence.

"All findings will be disclosed in full,” Roh said, noting all committee members would be outside experts to ensure objectivity while pledging full cooperation with any investigations, including by the National Assembly.

The NEC said 67 of the country's 14,288 polling stations were sent additional ballots on Election Day. The shortages affected 35 stations in Seoul, eight in Busan, seven in Daegu, six in Incheon, three in Ulsan and eight in South Gyeongsang Province. Southern Seoul's Songpa District had the most, with 15 affected stations.

Of those, 50 stations were confirmed to have actually run out of ballots, including 14 in Songpa District. At 22 stations, voting was briefly suspended before resuming due to the shortage.

Regarding why ballots were not printed to match the full eligible voter count, the NEC said it had revised its guidelines to set a floor of 60 percent for presidential and general elections, and 50 percent for local elections.

The change came as rising early voting rates in recent elections have left a surplus of unused ballots at stations in high-turnout areas, with the process of collecting, storing and disposing of excess ballots also factoring into the decision, the NEC said.

The NEC also noted that ballots do not need to be printed for the full electorate, as early voters do not cast ballots on Election Day.

A civic group filed a police complaint to investigate Rho over allegations including dereliction of duty, with the case assigned to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.