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🚨 BREAKING: 🇰🇷 South Korea's Ballot Shortage Scandal: Can the Special Counsel Be Trusted? SEOUL, Oct. 28, 2026: Nearly five months after the June 3 local elections, a special counsel today began examining every ballot cast in Seoul's Songpa District. The 2.47 million ballots have been stored inside the Handball Arena at Seoul's Olympic Park since election night. Today was supposed to be the day of answers. But one question hangs over the arena: can the special counsel itself be trusted? 📌 WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY Investigators are examining the ballots, CCTV footage, and voting and counting equipment. They say they are looking for fake ballots, unexplained changes in ballot counts, signs of break-ins, and signs that ballot sorting machines were hacked. Suspicious ballots are to be sent to the National Forensic Service for analysis. About 100 lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties, along with Korean citizens, are observing, and about 3,000 police officers have been deployed. The work is expected to continue past midnight. 📌 WHY PEOPLE DON'T TRUST THE PROCESS 1️⃣ No live stream. The examination was set to begin at 9 a.m. but was delayed about three hours over filming rules. Citizens and observers demanded a live stream, but the special counsel refused. Observers then offered to stream it themselves if an official broadcast wasn't possible, but that was refused too, and observers were even banned from filming anything at all. In the end, only two broadcast cameras recording from the second floor were allowed. Outside, hundreds of citizens waving Korean flags are chanting with one voice: "Live stream!" An investigation that truly seeks the truth has no reason to hide from the public. 2️⃣ The investigated are helping investigate. Although the National Election Commission (NEC) is under investigation, about 500 NEC staff are helping count the ballots. The special counsel says they are only counting. But how can an investigation be called independent when the very agency under suspicion is handling the evidence? 3️⃣ Eyes, not science. Staff look at each ballot by eye and feed it into counting machines. Only the ballots they flag as suspicious go to forensic experts. In effect, employees of the agency under investigation help decide what counts as "suspicious." 4️⃣ Citizen observers silenced. The special counsel ordered observers to delete the footage they had filmed and warned that anyone causing a disturbance would be removed. Observers must stay in their seats and cannot touch the ballots. Why is the special counsel so focused on controlling the citizens who came to watch, rather than the ballots? 5️⃣ "Strange ballots" raised. According to citizen observers today, stacks of crisp, brand-new ballots with no fold marks at all keep turning up, as if they had been freshly printed and inserted in bulk. All of them were reportedly marked for Democratic Party candidates. Citizens inside are furious, but anyone trying to live stream or take photos is being stopped. The special counsel has announced no findings. 📌 HOW DID WE GET HERE? On June 3, 2026, South Korea held nationwide local elections, and the Democratic Party swept most of the races. But at several polling stations in Songpa District, voting was halted because ballots ran out. Some voters waited for hours; others went home without voting. This is not the first time suspicions have been raised. Since the June 2025 presidential election, Korean netizens have spotted numerous cases of Chinese nationals filming and posting TikTok videos inside Korean polling stations urging people to "vote for Lee Jae-myung." The same happened in this local election. There were also repeated eyewitness reports of people who could barely speak Korean standing in polling lines, and of Chinese nationals coming out after voting and getting back in line. IDs were not properly checked, and ballots were seen being moved in ordinary paper bags rather than sealed ballot boxes. Gaps like these could have allowed ballots to be inserted in bulk along the way. As these reports spread, the controversy over "election fraud through Chinese interference" grew rapidly. The NEC, the independent agency that runs Korea's elections, called the ballot shortage a "distribution failure." It apologized, saying about 42,000 unused ballots remained within the district but were not delivered to the stations that needed them. Many Koreans were not convinced. How could ballots run out when thousands sat unused? Countless Koreans raised serious allegations of election fraud, and since then people of every generation have taken to the streets and squares to protest every single day. At Olympic Park, citizens have kept up protests demanding that the evidence be preserved. Thanks to them, the ballots never left the arena, and today they are finally being examined in the very place they were counted. Ballots inserted in bulk, ballots printed on different paper, or signs that sealed ballot boxes were opened could all be evidence of election fraud. If conducted honestly, today's examination should reveal exactly that. Since the election, support for the Democratic Party and the President has plunged, especially among people in their 20s and 30s. On July 30, the National Assembly passed the special counsel bill 226 to 2. The special counsel is investigating who caused the shortage, voter count errors in Gimpo and Uiwang, possible counterfeit ballots, and hiring corruption inside the NEC. On Oct. 27, investigators raided the arena, and a former NEC chairman was named a suspect for dereliction of duty. But many Koreans are asking: why did the very Democratic Party that benefited from this election agree to a special counsel so readily? Is this a real investigation, or a carefully managed show meant to bury the scandal and silence the public? 📌 WHY IT MATTERS Because this is a criminal investigation, not a recount, the election results will not change. But the real issue is trust. A special counsel that refuses to live stream, relies on staff from the agency under investigation, and silences citizen observers has not earned the public's trust. If there's nothing to hide, why not show the people everything? Free elections are what separate South Korea from North Korea. The Korean people deserve full transparency, not a staged show. 🎥 October 28, 2026: Outside the arena at Seoul's Olympic Park, where the special counsel's investigation into the National Election Commission is underway, Korean citizens chant, "Live stream!"