A man in his 60s who was deceived by false information on YouTube and damaged his ballot paper was sentenced to a suspended sentence and a fine.

A voter in his 60s who was deceived by false information posted on YouTube (a video sharing site) and damaged his ballot paper at a local election polling place was sentenced to a suspended fine.

The Cheongju District Court's Chungju Branch 2nd Criminal Division (Chief Judge Lim Yoon-han) announced on the 5th that it sentenced Mr. A (63), who was indicted without detention on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act, to a fine of 2.5 million won and one year of probation.

Mr. A was sent to trial on charges of tearing up a ballot paper at a polling place in Chungju on June 3, the day of the 9th national simultaneous local election.

It was revealed that he committed this crime because he could not decide who to vote for, but was concerned that the blank ballot paper would be used fraudulently.

During the trial, Mr. A admitted to the crime, saying, "I saw fake news on YouTube that if you put a blank ballot in the ballot box, someone could arbitrarily stamp it and commit election fraud. Through this incident, I realized that such news was false information and am deeply reflecting on it."

Chief Judge Lim ruled, "The crime is not light in that it undermined the fairness of the election and the peace of voting. However, we took into account the fact that the crime was acknowledged and the fact that it appears that the crime was committed due to lack of knowledge of the relevant regulations."