Page 47 - Election Book-ENG

– Ballots that are misaligned, misprinted, miscolored, or
improperly formatted. For example, the right and left
margins should always be identical as the ballot printing
machine settings maintain regular margin distances, and the
machine’s “roll printer” cuts from the top, not the side.

– Ballots that appear to have been printed by laser printer,
rather than ink-jet printers as would be the case with
legitimate ballots.

– Ballots that are glued together.

– Ballots with unreadable stamps. Early vote ballots should
be stamped with the individual seals of the local election site
supervisors. !ese should be clearly marked and legible. At
the 6th polling station in Songdo 2-Dong, Incheon, more
than 1,000 ballots were found with red stamps (known as
Japanese &ag ballots) that could not be identi#ed as to which
polling o"cer’s stamp they belonged to were found.

– The NEC is now allowing a generic stamp, rather than the
election official affixing his personal stamp to each ballot.
Observers have pointed out that this leaves room for
manipulation and mass reproduction as ballots can be copied
in bulk in any quantity.

– Ballots with the same distinctive pattern or mark on top of
Out-of-District early voting ballots from specific polling
places were found in Geoje, Gyeongnam Province, and
Seoul, respectively. Since early voting ballots are printed

Challenges Facing the South Korean Electoral System - 2024 47