Joint Investigation Headquarters raids 12 officials from Seoul city and Songpa district election commissions over ballot paper shortage

[Financial News] The Joint Investigation Headquarters, a joint police-prosecutors task force investigating the shortage of ballot papers during the June 3 local elections, has launched raids on officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission and the Songpa District Election Commission.
In a notice to the press on the 24th, the Joint Investigation Headquarters said it carried out searches and seizures on three officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission and nine officials from the Songpa District Election Commission to closely reconstruct the ballot paper shortage on election day.
This was the second compulsory investigation, carried out 13 days after the first raid on seven election commissions, including the National Election Commission (NEC) and the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission, on the 11th.
All 12 people targeted in the raids were reportedly being treated as witnesses.
The Joint Investigation Headquarters has secured their mobile phones and other devices, and is expected to analyze messenger chats and work-related contact records through digital forensics. Based on that evidence, it plans to reconstruct the reporting and response process before and after the ballot paper shortage on election day.
The task force also said it began analyzing materials and review documents submitted the previous day by the NEC from its own fact-finding committee.
Earlier, after fully setting up its investigation office at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on the 17th, the task force had been summoning officials from election commissions in the Seoul metropolitan area, district office employees assigned to voting operations, and poll workers in sequence for witness interviews.
Investigators are focusing in particular on why the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission, on election day, recognized signs of a ballot paper shortage at the Songpa District Election Commission but did not immediately report it to the NEC, instead handling the situation on its own for about five hours.
 



scottchoi15@fnnews.com Choi Eun-sol Reporter