South Korean Presidential Election 2022:  Ballot Problems Already

Tara O, 2022-3-5

The presidential election date is March 9, 2022, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  Voters can vote on that day or during the pre-vote period of March 4-5, 2022, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  For those who tested positive for Coronavirus, their voting time is only 1 hour, from 5-6 p.m., each on voting days.  The voting period for Koreans living abroad is February 23-28 at Korean embassies and consular offices.  Their ballots then are mailed to Korea.

Here are some procedures that raise questions:

• Unlike the actual day of election, during pre-voting days, ballots are printed on-site for each voter.

• Koreans use a stamp with the person’s name (functions as a signature), in this case, it should be the local election commission manager’s stamp, on the ballots.

• • But the stamp is pre-printed, rather than stamped afterwards.
  • In some cases, the pre-printed stamp is a generic stamp, rather than the local election manager’s personal stamp with his/her name. This makes it difficult to trace back and to verify if there is an audit.

• Voters put their own ballots in a box through a slot.  However, Coronavirus-positive voters are told to hand the ballots to a third person, who works at voting locations, and told that the third person then will put the ballots in a ballot box; their words are supposed to be trusted, and there is no verification mechanism to see where their ballots go.  This violates the National Election Law, Paragraph 157, Section 4.

• In addition to freshly printed ballots, these voters were also given an envelope that has another ballot that was already marked with Lee Jae-myung (#1, so the top line), the presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (Deobureo Minju Party)
• Some of the ballots are not stored in secure, official containers.

Already, questionable practices are making the citizens nervous and question the voting process.  Voters are supposed to put their ballots directly into a box through a slot, but they are told to hand the ballots to the workers/volunteers at the polling site instead.  Ballots are printed with stamps (like signatures) pre-printed.  The stamps are supposed to belong to the local elections manager of the precinct, but the stamps are generic, which do not indicate who the local election manager is.

At Shinsa 1-dong precinct, Unpyeong-gu, Seoul during 5-6 p.m. on March 5, 2022, a man stated that Coronavirus-positive voters received ballots, but additionally, they also received a separate envelope, which had another ballot that was already marked with #1 Lee Jae-myung, with a stamp on it. (0:10).  It happened to several people, so they contacted People Power Party, who sent a representative.  The representative talked to the election commission workers and the police to halt the process to try to resolve the matter, but since there were people waiting to vote, the process continued.

Another issue at Shinsa 1-dong precinct is that voters were told to hand over the voted ballots to the election workers, and trust that person to put the ballots in the box, instead of voters putting their ballots in the box directly. (1:53)

A woman pointed out that another woman is carrying around her voted ballot, because she doesn’t want to transfer her ballot to someone else, because she knows she is supposed to put her ballot directly in the box herself.  (2:10)  She and many other voters do not trust the National Election Commission nor their non-transparent practices. She does not know what else to do.  The first woman stated that it happened to other voters, so they went home with the ballots, not knowing what to do, but they did not want to simply hand over their ballots to someone, because their concern that their ballots can simply disappear.

The local election workers say they do not know what is going on, and the police will not get involved, stating it is an election commission issue.  Election monitors can stop the process if they discover problems, so she did stop the process, but Lee Jae-myung’s supporters hurled abuses at her, and went inside.  The election commission workers overruled the monitor and continued the process for those who entered the building, finishing the voting at 6 p.m.  (2:51)  Meanwhile, Corona-positive people who stood in line outside could not vote, and the polling booth closed.

Another man, a regular voter, voted and was leaving the building when he saw people saying they were given an envelope each with two ballots, one of which was already marked with Lee Jae-myung.  He went to check, and indeed, there were two ballots, one with Lee marked already, and that was the case for two other voters in line.  (3:44)  So he told the police, but to no avail. 

An election commission manager gave an explanation when asked why there were two ballots, and one of them was already marked for Lee jae-myung.  She stated that in the midst of numerous complaints and hand collecting voted ballots, she gave the envelop to the voters, thinking it was empty (but it was not). (8:29)

Lawyer Park Ju-hyun asked the election commission manager why the stamps (which are like signatures) are pre-printed on the ballots, instead of her using her own stamp to stamp the ballots after they are printed.  He stated that is illegal.  She had no answer.

When the election commission manager stated she has to come outside to take the ballots from (the Coronavirus-positive) voters and take them upstairs inside the building, Lawyer Park asked who takes the ballots and who delivers the ballots?  She stated the instruction came from the National Election Commission. (9:41)

At another location, the same practice of taking the voted ballots from the Coronavirus-positive voters from outside by election workers/interns was repeated.  He stated that the instruction came down from the National Election Commission. (3:18)  Voters are reporting that this practice is occurring in various voting locations.

Additionally, the ballots were found unsecure in some locations, or the ballot boxes were not officially designated secure boxes.

The People Power Party (PPP) leadership has been ignoring, and sometimes were even hostile to, the calls by Hwang Kyo-ahn (former prime Minister and former leaders of PPP’s predecessor United Future Party), former lawmaker Min Kyung-wook, Lawyer Park Ju-hyun, and other citizens to take measures to address election frauds and make the process free, fair, and transparent.  In fact, the key leaders of PPP even encouraged early voting, which was problematic in the April 15, 2020 elections.

After the above incidents, however, PPP changed its tunes.  Kim Ki-hyun, PPP’s Election Committee Chairman, who has been critical of those who asked people to vote on the day of the election, rather than early voting, is now posting on his Facebook comments criticizing the National Election Commission (NEC) as incompetent for running such a “laxed and feeble” voting process.  It is actually more than feeble, since the election law is violated.  Additionally, PPP lawmakers, including Kim Un-hye, Kim Woong, Yoo Gyeong-joon, and Lee Young, visited the National Election Commission headquarters to lodge a protest, but the NEC stated that they followed “the law an principles,” despite conducts that were against the law and the lack of transparency. 

In South Korea, the head of the National Election Commission is also a sitting Supreme Court Justice.  Currently, the Supreme Court Justice Roh Jung-hee (노정희) is the National Election Commissioner.  As noted in the past, this arrangement causes conflict of interest if the NEC becomes a defendant, which it is on 130 election fraud lawsuit cases form the April 15, 2020 elections.  The law states that the Supreme Court MUST hear the election fraud lawsuits within six months, yet the Supreme Court did not, which essentially violated the law.  After a year, it only reviewed a few cases and had not made any decisions, despite numerous fraudulent ballots presented at the court.

Rho Jung-hee was one of the Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn the lower court’s guilty ruling of Lee Jae-myung for various criminal charges, including his efforts to put his own brother in a psychiatric hospital.  If the Supreme Court did not overturn the ruling, then the law would have forbade Lee Jae-myung from running for public office for five years.

Meanwhile, the National Election Commission apparently sued former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn for “violating the election law” for encouraging people to vote on the election day of March 9, rather than the pre-vote period, due to transparency and other problems.

In addition to the presidential election, the regional elections (to elect governors, mayors, education commissioners, etc.) will be held on Jun 1, 2022.