NEC Fails to Secure Polling Station, Leaving It Vulnerable to Intrusion

[Anchor]

The chaos at the second polling station did not subside even after voting ended at 10:00 p.m. The National Election Commission's (NEC) poor and complacent response became even more apparent at that time. Although the ballot boxes were eventually transported with the help of police, the polling station doors were left unlocked, leaving remaining election materials completely exposed to protesters.

Go Jeong-hyeon reports exclusively.

[Reporter]

Tension rises at the second polling station after 10:00 p.m. when someone attempts to enter through the back door.

Hwang Kyo-ahn, who was a candidate for Pyeongtaek-eul, Gyeonggi Province, at the time and had no connection to Jamsil, Seoul, entered the polling station, followed by lawyer Park Joo-hyun, who has been claiming election fraud.

Election officials opened the door for them, raising concerns about a potential violation of election law, which prohibits entry to anyone other than election staff.

[Kim Jeong-cheol / Supreme Council Member of the Reform Party: They let in someone who is a proponent of election fraud theories and also a candidate, and allowed them to film inside.]

Twenty-three hours after the attempt to remove the ballot boxes was blocked by protesters gathered outside, one exhausted staff member was taken away by paramedics on the evening of June 4.

It was not until around 8:50 a.m. on June 5 that police riot squads entered through the back door and finally transported the ballot boxes out.

However, 13 minutes later, as the police left the polling station, some protesters immediately swarmed inside.

Even though other equipment remained besides the ballot boxes that had been removed, the storage area was not locked, and there were no staff members left on-site.

Various election-related materials inside were left defenseless, and the polling station was effectively occupied for about 42 minutes. A comparison of CCTV footage before and after the incident shows a stark difference.

[Kim Jeong-cheol / Supreme Council Member of the Reform Party: They should have sealed it with police assistance and locked it so that no one could enter. It shows that even then, the NEC did not realize how serious the situation was.]

At 5:34 p.m. on June 5, staff returned to the polling station to clear out the remaining items. They collected the remaining equipment, including a large brown box labeled 138 that had been brought in on election day, June 3, and transported them to the Songpa-gu Election Commission.

Within 20 minutes, the polling station was converted back into a senior citizens' center for the apartment complex.

Five days later, on June 10, the court conducted an on-site inspection to find key evidence, such as the boxes used to store ballots, but they returned empty-handed.

Reported by Ha Ryung | Video by Yoon Tae-ho | Graphics by Hwang Se-yeon | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.