National Election Commission responds to controversy over exposure of President Lee's past ballots, saying, "It wasn't made public" (comprehensive)

National Assembly inspection reaffirms position that ‘just appearing at the polling booth does not violate the law’

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Ahn Jung-hoon = Kang Dong-wan, Acting Secretary-General of the National Election Commission, reaffirmed on the 7th his previous position that President Lee Jae-myung entered the polling booth during the early voting for the June 3 local elections and briefly came out holding the ballot paper in his hand, saying that he does not consider the ballot paper to have been made public.

Acting Kang attended the Public Administration and Security Committee's audit of government affairs on this day and responded to People Power Party lawmaker Kang Myeong-gu's question, "Didn't the National Election Commission look at it because he was the president?" by saying, "That's not true."

He explained, “It was not considered that three types of videos, including the videos in question, were released at the National Election Commission meeting.”

Previously, President Lee entered the polling booth during early voting at the end of May and briefly came out to ask about the ballot stamp.

The People Power Party claimed that President Lee was holding a ballot paper in his hand at the time, defined this as a “ballot exposure incident,” and launched an offensive to violate election laws. However, the National Election Commission said at the time, “Just entering and exiting the polling booth is not a violation of the law.”

In response to a question from Democratic Party lawmaker Yoon Geon-young asking whether he felt responsible for the delay in the recount at the Olympic Park counting center, acting Kang repeatedly apologized, saying "yes."

Regarding this issue, he said, "We will work with the special prosecutor to ensure that it is verified as quickly as possible."

When asked why he did not request a recount from the special prosecution, acting Kang responded, “There was a request (from the special prosecution) to preserve the ballots stored at the handball stadium on site.”

In addition, in response to a question from Democratic Party lawmaker Park Joo-min asking why a special allowance budget was allocated for the Gangneung National Assembly by-election to be held next year, he said, "The working-level staff was unable to check (the budget) in the process of allocating it," and added, "It will not be executed, and it will not be executed."

He added, "I feel ashamed. I was unable to check the government plan while it was being finalized at the end of May."

Regarding this, Rep. Park criticized, saying, “Because we blame the practitioners, we don’t trust the National Election Commission.”

The special allowance is a budget to encourage civil servants of the National Election Commission (NEC) level 5 or lower to perform election work, but it has been controversial in conjunction with the shortage of ballot papers in the June 3 local elections.