"We Admit Our Fault, But..." Voices of Frustration Emerge on NEC Internal Bulletin Board

[Anchor]

Voices of self-reproach and condemnation are emerging from within the National Election Commission (NEC). Among the staff, claims have surfaced that the recent situation was caused by "a small number of personnel and a murderous workload," with some asserting that "a single employee had to manage over 100 polling stations."

Reporter Park Jae-yeon has the story.

[Reporter]

These are posts uploaded by National Election Commission employees to their internal bulletin board.

Regarding the shortage of ballot papers, one employee wrote on June 5, "Even if we admit that the NEC is at fault, the current situation where the election system is overloaded must be made known," arguing that "the root cause is the murderous workload and lack of personnel."

On June 10, another employee asked, "One person is managing over 100 polling stations; if reports of ballot shortages come in simultaneously, could one person possibly handle them?"

In the case of the Songpa-gu Election Commission in Seoul, where the ballot paper shortage occurred on election day, there were 13 employees in total. According to the NEC, only three or four of them were responsible for managing the voting situation at 146 polling stations under their jurisdiction while also preparing for the vote count, making it impossible to respond to emergency situations.

The staffing situation at local-level election commissions in other cities, counties, and districts was not much different.

This is why employees are flooding the internal bulletin board with arguments that the work system is in urgent need of fundamental reform, stating, "The amount of work and logistics handled by local election commissions during simultaneous elections is enormous."

Experts point out that more authority should be delegated to local government officials who are actually mobilized for election duties, and that training should be strengthened.

[Lee Jae-mook / Professor of Political Science and Diplomacy, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies: We could simply prepare emergency personnel who can respond. We need to ensure they have the expertise for delegated election affairs.]

The ruling and opposition parties have reached a preliminary consensus on forming a special parliamentary committee to investigate the ballot paper shortage, and there is growing pressure to accelerate legislative discussions for fundamental reforms of the NEC system, including the expansion of standing committee members.

(Reported by Lee Seung-hwan and Yang Hyun-chul | Video edited by Kim Yoon-sung | Graphics by Jang Chae-woo)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.