Police received more than 300 reports of disturbances at polling stations nationwide on Wednesday, the main voting day of the 9th nationwide local elections.
According to the Korean National Police Agency, a total of 312 election-related 112 emergency calls were filed across the country between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. that day. By category, voting obstruction and disturbances were the most common at 53 cases, followed by traffic inconvenience at 14 cases and assault at 3 cases. Other reports, including mistaken calls, totaled 242 cases.
In Seoul, a total of 96 reports were filed by 3 p.m. At around 12:18 p.m. at a polling station in Yeongdeungpo District, Seoul, a citizen attempted to vote again after completing voting, claiming to point out election fraud, and caused a disturbance by shouting in protest. Police plan to continue their investigation.
At around 12:36 p.m. the same day, a report was filed in Dongjak District, Seoul, that a man in his 60s caused a disturbance by getting irritated during the ID verification process.
At a polling station in Gangdong District, a woman in her 70s caused a disturbance, claiming a signature had already been placed on the electoral roll under her name. An investigation revealed that another person had signed the woman's section of the electoral roll due to an error by an election officer. The polling station noted the reason and proceeded with the voting.
Police plan to verify the facts of the reports and review whether any related laws were violated.
The police issued the highest-level emergency duty alert, "Gap-ho emergency," to police stations nationwide that day to provide security for voting and ballot counting. A total of 65,369 police officers were deployed to 14,288 polling stations and 258 ballot counting stations across the country.
According to the National Election Commission, the nationwide voter turnout stood at 54.7% as of 4 p.m. that day. This is 3.8 percentage points higher than the final turnout of 50.9% for the 8th local elections, and 9.3 percentage points higher than the turnout at the same time of day (45.4%).
