ballot shortage-probe

SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) -- A special counsel team on Friday asked the National Election Commission (NEC) to keep intact the 420 ballot boxes that drew no objections during its inspection at a Seoul handball arena, saying it may need to examine them again.

The boxes had sat in the Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium in southeastern Seoul since the June 3 local elections. Special counsel Lee Tae-han's team carried them out Thursday after reviewing all 2.47 million ballots cast in the southeastern Songpa Ward.

The team has been investigating unprecedented ballot shortages on Election Day that turned some voters away before they could cast their votes.

The ballots were placed in 433 boxes, 420 of which were taken to an NEC storage facility in the capital area, according to the commission. Under the election law, they will be stored for the duration of the elected officials' terms.

The team took the remaining 13 boxes and will inspect their content further based on objections raised by on-site observers. Some of them will be sent to the National Forensic Service for closer examination.

The gymnasium served as a vote counting center during the elections, but protesters had blocked the ballots' removal since June amid calls for accountability for the shortage and a rerun of the elections.

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