South Korea election committee forms truth panel over ballot shortage

South Korea's local election ballot shortage incident continues to escalate. The truth investigation committee, established by the Central Election Management Committee, held its first meeting today. Committee Chair Cho Hyun-wook stated that the committee will objectively and accurately investigate the full scope of the incident and transparently disclose the investigation results.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Cho Hyun-wook said at the Central Election Management Committee today that the investigation committee, regardless of progressive or conservative factions, "will gather with the passion to protect constitutional values from an objective and neutral standpoint to investigate this infringement of political rights."

Cho Hyun-wook emphasized that they will strictly pursue accountability and seek breakthrough improvement plans, proposing and recommending reforms to the election management system to prevent the infringement of electoral fairness and credibility again. "I hope the public does not interpret the committee from the perspective of political factional gains and losses, and it will operate with an independent status."

Cho Hyun-wook frankly stated, "In a liberal democracy, an unprecedented and absolutely unacceptable ballot shortage incident like this has occurred. This cannot be excused as an administrative error or an assessment failure; it is a serious constitutional crisis that infringes upon the political rights of the people." He pointed out that this incident also exposed a comprehensive failure of the entire election management system.

After approximately three hours of the first meeting, Cho Hyun-wook announced that it was confirmed that the election management committee did not have a relevant response manual in case of a shortage of ballots. If necessary, they will request relevant staff to attend and submit more materials, and will also request detailed information such as the reasons for starting the vote count before the voting ended and the identities of the decision-makers, as well as meeting records for the decision to reduce the printing quantity.

The report indicates that the truth investigation committee is composed of six external members, including Cho Hyun-wook, who is a lawyer. It will operate for 10 days until the 19th. (Editor: Chang Chih-hsuan) 1150610