In Busan as well as Seoul, during the early voting process for the 20th presidential election, the polling station mistakenly distributed 6 ballot papers that had already been marked to a specific candidate to voters and collected them.
Yesterday (the 5th), the second day of early voting, around 6:40 pm, at the 3rd polling station in Yeonje-gu, Yeonsan 4-dong, Busan, for confirmed and quarantined people, six voters voted for the Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung and People's Power candidate Yoon Seok-yeol, not new ballots. You have received a marked ballot.
They were astonished when they pulled out their ballots from the temporary voting booth envelopes to vote after identification.
The ballot paper had already been marked for a specific candidate and had clear vertical and horizontal folds.
Person A, who received the ballot papers that had been marked at the time, said, "Many people besides me received ballots with specific candidates stamped on them.
As voters protested to reveal the circumstances, an official at the polling place admitted the mistake, saying, "I should have put the ballot papers voted by other confirmed patients in the ballot box, but I didn't know and gave them back."
Then, he said that 6 ballot papers that were incorrectly distributed with a specific candidate stamped were put in the ballot box and treated as valid votes.
The six people who received the marked ballot papers went home after checking their identity again and voting, putting them directly into the ballot box or delivering them to the polling station officials.
Person A said, "I had a lot of questions when I saw the ballot papers being managed in a fist-fighting manner."
In response, an official from the Busan Election Commission explained, "It was caused by a misunderstanding without sending the ballot papers collected by the polling station clerk to the polling station before it was sent to the polling station because there were many confirmed and quarantined people."
(Photo = Yonhap News)