A man in his 40s caused a disturbance at a polling station in Dajeong-dong, Sejong City, at 6:29 a.m. Tuesday, the day of South Korea's 9th nationwide local elections, when he attempted to show his marked ballot to an election officer instead of placing it in the ballot box and was stopped. The man reportedly caused a commotion inside the polling station for more than 10 minutes, arguing along the lines of "Didn't the president do the same thing?" and "Please check whether I marked it correctly."
At a polling station in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, a man in his 60s protested, claiming he "received a ballot that had already been marked for a specific candidate."
As disturbances continued at polling stations across the country on the day of the local elections, police received 213 emergency calls through the 112 hotline by 12 p.m. Tuesday. By category, voting obstruction and disturbance accounted for the largest share with 28 cases, followed by two assault cases, 10 traffic-related complaints, and 173 other reports including mistaken calls.
At a polling station in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, a man in his 60s shouted and caused a disturbance at around 6:28 a.m. after being stopped from taking his marked ballot outside instead of depositing it in the ballot box. Police said they plan to review whether the incident violated the Public Official Election Act.
In Guro-gu, Seoul, a report was filed at around 7:40 a.m. that a man in his 60s had assaulted an election officer by grabbing the officer's arm during the process of being directed to his correct polling station after mistakenly arriving at the wrong location. Police plan to launch an investigation after verifying the facts.
Reports alleging "election fraud" also came in succession. In Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, at around 7:46 a.m., a voter raised suspicions of election fraud, claiming, "I was supposed to receive three ballots but only got two." However, police and the National Election Commission (NEC) confirmed through electronic records that all three ballots had in fact been issued.
In Gamil-dong, Hanam, Gyeonggi Province, a voter also protested, claiming, "I received only six of the seven ballots," but the incident did not escalate into assault. The NEC is conducting additional verification procedures.
In Byeongjeom-dong, Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, a report was filed that someone was filming inside a polling station, but it was confirmed that the filming did not take place inside a voting booth, and no legal violations were found.
Police issued a "Gap-ho" alert, the highest level of emergency duty, at police agencies nationwide on Tuesday, mobilizing forces for voting and ballot-counting security. A total of 65,369 officers were deployed to 14,288 polling stations and 258 ballot-counting stations across the country.
Meanwhile, voter turnout stood at 48.9 percent as of 2 p.m. Tuesday, a figure that includes the early voting turnout of 23.51 percent. According to the NEC, after voting began at polling stations nationwide at 6 a.m., 11,268,723 of the total 44,649,908 eligible voters had cast their ballots. Including early voters, 21,832,984 people had voted.
