10 people cast ballots on unsealed ballots in Gangwon... Election Commission: "A mistake"

Resident files complaint with the Inje County Election Commission

Election Commission: "Mistakes can happen because it is done by people"

At a polling station in Inje County, Gangwon, ballot papers that had not been stamped by the polling supervisor were distributed.

According to the Inje County Election Commission, between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on the 3rd, at the Gwidun 1-ri Community Center, which was used as Polling Station No. 5 in Inje-eup, ballots without the polling supervisor's stamp were handed out to voters.

A resident who found this suspicious filed a complaint with the county Election Commission, but by that time, 10 voters had already marked their ballots without the official stamp.

After voting ends at 8 p.m., these ballots, which were placed in the ballot box, will be transferred to the counting center. Whether these ballots will be considered valid or invalid will depend on further actions taken by the county Election Commission, but it is expected they may be counted as valid ballots.

The county Election Commission instructed the polling supervisor to record details of the incident in the polling record and explained the situation to the observers.

An official from the Inje County Election Commission stated, "Since people are involved, this was an honest mistake," and explained, "These are regular ballots, and there are guidelines that if such issues are noted in the record, (during counting) they are treated as valid."

Shin Hyun-bo, Hankyung.com reporter greaterfool@hankyung.com