[Anchor]

The vote counting center at Olympic Park in Seoul has been opened 27 days after it was blocked by protests. The National Assembly's special committee investigating the shortage of ballots conducted an on-site inspection today, July 2. Lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties entered the counting center to verify the storage status of 2.47 million ballots for the first time.

Kim Kwan-jin has the first report.

[Reporter]

Lawmakers from the National Assembly's special investigation committee gathered in front of the handball stadium at Olympic Park in Jamsil, Seoul, which served as the Songpa-gu vote counting center during the June 3 local elections.

At 1:11 p.m. today, they began entering the counting center.

Police secured an entry point at a relatively secluded entrance, rather than the two main entrances that had been blocked by citizens.

Once the lawmakers entered the facility and moved to the underground ballot storage area, boxes labeled "Ballots" were revealed.

[Yoon Kun-young / Democratic Party of Korea]: "Can you prove that the status of these ballots has not changed since they were first placed here?"

[Jo Si-hoon / Former Secretary-General of the Songpa-gu Election Commission]: "They are sealed. They are all sealed with the chairman's official stamp."

There are a total of 420 boxes in storage, containing the marked ballots.

[Yoon Sang-hyun / Chairman of the Special Investigation Committee (People Power Party)]: "How many ballots do you estimate are here?"

[Jo Si-hoon / Former Secretary-General of the Songpa-gu Election Commission]: "Approximately 2.47 million."

[Kim Young-bae / Democratic Party of Korea]: "So the ballots from the Jamsil 7-dong No. 2 polling station are here as well, right?"

[Jo Si-hoon / Former Secretary-General of the Songpa-gu Election Commission]: "Yes, that is correct."

The lawmakers pointed out that CCTV cameras were not properly installed in the ballot storage area.

[Jo Si-hoon / Former Secretary-General of the Songpa-gu Election Commission]: "We didn't have the time to install separate CCTV cameras..."

[Choi Bo-yoon / People Power Party]: "Shouldn't you have chosen a location that already had CCTV cameras installed from the beginning?"

[Kim Yong-man / Democratic Party of Korea]: "This was originally a shower room in the stadium. That is why there are no CCTV cameras inside, and it is a situation where we cannot say it is being managed securely."

Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the special committee, emphasized the need for public verification to the National Election Commission.

[Yoon Sang-hyun / Chairman of the Special Investigation Committee (People Power Party)]: "To prove that the ballot boxes have been preserved as they were, and that the counting process was conducted without any issues or errors."

The special committee verified the storage status of the 2.47 million ballots during the 40-minute on-site inspection. They did not open or remove the ballot boxes and have requested that the Election Commission submit the CCTV footage from the counting center.

(Reported by Kim Kwan-jin | Video by Shin Dong-hwan and Yang Ji-hoon | Video Editing by Jang Hyun-ki)