Ruling and Opposition Parties Clash Over Evidence Preservation of Olympic Park Ballots
The ruling and opposition parties locked horns over the removal of ballots from the Olympic Park stadium during a public verification process conducted on October 31 by the special prosecutor's team investigating the National Election Commission (the special investigation team handling the case). People Power Party spokesperson Ham In-kyung said in a statement that day that the special prosecutor's team had failed to preserve all of the removed ballots as evidence, pointing to problems with the procedural legitimacy of the process. "Evidence preservation is a basic procedure that should obviously be in place before a public verification," she argued, asking, "Can an explanation of preservation measures, delivered via a press briefing only in the late afternoon the day after the ballots were removed, be considered adequate?" She added that transparency had not been ensured throughout the entire process of sorting, transporting, and storing the ballots. The special prosecutor's team had announced through a media notice the previous day that it had requested the election commission to keep the ballots in their current state, including those not subject to any objections during verification, in case further verification becomes necessary.
The issue of broadcasting permits was also raised. Spokesperson Ham said, "After roughly three hours of demands on site, this was something that should have been guaranteed from the start, not something granted only after being pressed," adding, "If a public verification is being conducted but the process itself is not sufficiently disclosed to the public, one cannot help but ask what the public verification is for."
Democratic Party floor leader Lee Joo-hee criticized People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk in a written briefing on the 31st. "Stop the politics of using the people's right to vote as a resource to extend your own political life," Lee urged, telling Jang to "abandon the absurd notion that only your own claims are true and everything else is a conspiracy." Demanding the retraction of his "banditry" remark about the special prosecutor and his acceptance of the outcome, she said, "Retract your comment calling the special prosecutor's work 'banditry,' and clearly state that you will accept the results even if they differ from your claims." She went on to say, "The special prosecutor for the election commission was appointed after candidate recommendations from the Korean Bar Association and the Council of Deans of Law Schools, and a unanimous vote by a citizen recommendation committee with equal numbers of ruling and opposition members," adding, "Kicking away the very verification process that the People Power Party helped create is behavior that discards one's own qualification to lead a legitimate party."
