At the No. 2 polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, voting hours were extended to 10 p.m. It applies to some voters who were given waiting number tickets, but it is an unprecedented move.
Around 9 p.m. on the 3rd, the No. 2 polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, which we visited, was still conducting voting even though three hours had passed since the official voting time ended.
Lee Hye-suk, a former chair of the Songpa District Council, said, "We tried to close voting at 6 p.m., but many residents were still in line, so the National Election Commission handed out 50 waiting number tickets," and added, "But there were more than 50 residents in line, and residents raised complaints."
In the end, only voters who received waiting number tickets were allowed to vote until 10 p.m. The National Election Commission has not closed the polls as it is waiting for voters until 10 p.m., and some residents are protesting in front of the senior center at Woosung Apartment, where the polling station is set up, shouting "invalid vote." Scenes of residents shouting at each other over alleged election fraud also played out.
The People Power Party is calling for a halt to the vote count in the Seoul mayoral election. Floor leader Song Eon-seog of the People Power Party said, "As people were unable to vote for more than an hour, situations arose in which they effectively could not vote due to personal schedules, health, or other personal reasons," and said it was a "serious infringement of voting rights and suffrage."
Song, the floor leader, said, "As voting proceeded after 6 p.m., it is hard to rule out the possibility that the exit poll results influenced the vote," adding, "There is also a case in which the Berlin court in Germany declared an election entirely invalid and ordered a revote on the grounds that the election authorities' overall poor management hindered the exercise of voting rights and distorted the election results."