[Editorial] Unprecedented Ballot Shortages and Delays: The NEC Must Ensure Accountability and Reform the System

On the day of in-person voting for the 9th nationwide local elections, an unprecedented situation occurred in which voting was delayed at some polling stations, including Jamsil 7-dong in Songpa-gu, Seoul, due to a shortage of ballots. According to the National Election Commission, as of 6:20 p.m. on June 3, ballot shortages had been confirmed at 14 polling stations in Seoul. This incident was not a simple on-site mistake, but a grave failure of election administration that undermined both the exercise of citizens’ political rights and trust in electoral procedures.

Elections are the starting point of liberal democracy. The legitimacy of democracy is sustained when citizens are able to vote freely at the designated time and place, and when those votes are managed fairly. The election commission is a constitutional institution that must prepare and administer elections so that all voters can exercise their right to vote under equal conditions. If, however, voters were forced to wait for long periods or suffered confusion even after the close of voting because ballots ran short, then the commission failed to fulfill its most basic duty.

The bigger problem is the post-incident response. In the early hours of the 4th, the National Election Commission issued a statement saying that “a ballot shortage does not constitute grounds for postponing the election or holding a re-election under the Public Official Election Act” and that “suspending the vote count is not possible.” Of course, legal judgments must be made in accordance with the law and proper procedures. But what the public should have seen first was not a defensive explanation that this was “not grounds for a re-election,” but a sense of responsibility for having disrupted the exercise of political rights, along with concrete measures to resolve the situation.

The commission must not downplay its responsibility with explanations such as “voter turnout was higher than expected.” Fluctuations in turnout are a basic variable that an election administration body is naturally expected to prepare for. Securing sufficient ballots, setting reserve supply standards, tracking inventory in real time, maintaining an emergency transport system, and having on-site reporting manuals are all fundamental aspects of election administration. In particular, if problems occurred simultaneously at multiple polling stations, this should be viewed not as a mistake at a single site, but as a broader failure in demand forecasting, distribution planning, and crisis response systems.

This incident is also serious from the perspective of the rule of law, which the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE) has consistently emphasized. As Hayek argued, the essence of the rule of law lies in preventing the arbitrary exercise of power and enabling citizens to exercise their freedom and rights under general rules that are predictable. Voters go to polling stations on the assumption that they will be able to exercise their voting rights reliably in accordance with established procedures. But ballot shortages, confusion from one polling site to another, and controversy over extending voting hours all damaged the predictability of the process and the institutional stability of the system.

The election commission must also take seriously the causes of, and responsibility for, the spread of claims of election fraud. In a liberal democratic society, baseless conspiracy theories must be guarded against. But the primary responsibility for managing elections in a transparent and stable way so that the public has no reason to doubt lies with the election commission. If ballots run short, on-site responses descend into confusion, and subsequent explanations appear complacent, public distrust can only grow. The surest way to block election-fraud claims is not to demand that people refrain from suspicion, but to operate the system in such a way that no room for suspicion remains.

Accordingly, this incident must not end with merely disciplining those responsible; institutional reform to prevent a recurrence must follow. First, the election commission should transparently disclose, for each of the 14 polling stations where ballot shortages occurred, the scale of the shortage, the time it occurred, the number of people waiting, the time additional ballots were delivered, the length of the voting delay, and whether there were actual cases of voters giving up on voting. Second, it must determine whether the concentration of problems at 12 sites in Songpa-gu was caused by errors in estimating the number of voters, failures in turnout forecasting, flaws in printing or distribution standards, or delays in the on-site reporting system. Third, it must establish preventive measures such as raising the standard for reserve ballots, introducing a real-time inventory management system, overhauling emergency transport manuals, setting risk criteria for each polling station, and making pre-election simulation drills mandatory.

The commission’s independence is not a shield for avoiding responsibility. Independence is merely an institutional guarantee for fair election administration, and accordingly it demands a high level of professionalism, transparency, and accountability. The election commission must not reduce this incident to a one-off mishap. It must answer to the public through a thorough assignment of responsibility, a clear identification of root causes, and institutional improvements to prevent recurrence.

Free and fair elections are the minimum condition for liberal democracy. This ballot shortage incident was a serious event that shook that minimum condition. Liberal democracy is not sustained by election results alone. It is sustained only when the people can trust the electoral process.

2026. 6. 4.

Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [논평] 초유의 투표 용지 부족과 지연 사태, 선관위는 책임 규명과 제도개혁으로 답해야 한다

Author: Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

Date: 2026-06-04

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=comment&pn=1&idx=29105