▲ Protesters gather at an entrance of the handball stadium in Olympic Park in Seoul's eastern district of Songpa in protest of ballot shortages in the local elections, in this photo taken June 5, 2026. (Yonhap)
▲ Officials remove ballot boxes from a polling station in southern Seoul on June 5, 2026, after breaking up protesters who had gathered in protest of a shortage of ballots during the June 3 local elections. (Yonhap)
▲ Jang Dong-hyeok (3rd from R), leader of the main opposition People Power Party, and others are locked in a standoff with police officers at a vote counting center in southern Seoul on June 5, 2026. (Yonhap)

(3rd LD) police-polling station

(3rd LD) Angry protesters block vote-counting facility over ballot shortages

(ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; UPDATES throughout; ADDS photos)

SEOUL, June 5 (Yonhap) -- Thousands of protesters encircled a vote-counting facility in eastern Seoul on Friday amid growing backlash over ballot shortages that disrupted Wednesday's local elections, claiming the vote was fraudulent and demanding a revote.

The rally came after police dispersed a crowd of demonstrators from a polling station in the same Songpa district, ending a two-day protest that had blocked access to the site. Police also managed to secure ballot boxes from the polling station.

The boxes, said to contain around 2,000 ballots, were transported to a ballot counting center at nearby Olympic Park.

Around 2,000 protesters, according to a police estimate, surrounded the handball stadium in Olympic Park at around 5:40 p.m., in an attempt to block the entrance to the facility.

The crowd swelled in the afternoon from a few hundred people who had gathered in the morning, as more demonstrators appeared to join after learning about the protest through YouTube channels, police said.

National Election Commission (NEC) officials, facility employees and some members of the media were unable to leave the stadium as protesters blocked the entrances. Some officials were forced to exit the facility through windows.

The protesters denounced the local elections as fraudulent, chanting, "Revote!" and "The vote is invalid!"

"It has become difficult to move people in and out as protesters converged on all entrances," a police officer waiting inside the facility said.

Depending on how long the protest continues, it could disrupt the Weverse Con Festival, a K-pop music event scheduled to run at Olympic Park from Saturday through Sunday.

Earlier in the day, police pushed through a crowd of protesters to remove two ballot boxes from a polling station in Jamsil, Songpa Ward, after deploying about 1,000 officers to disperse the rally. Multiple people suffered minor injuries.

A dozen locations in Seoul, including Songpa, experienced ballot shortages in Wednesday's election, prompting the temporary suspension of voting at the affected stations.

The protesters accused the election watchdog of having committed election fraud and blocked election officials from removing the ballot boxes.

The standoff had prevented the NEC from completing vote counting and officially declaring election winnners in the affected areas.

A group of protesters attempted to block the police from entering the polling station, resulting in physical clashes as officers dragged them out. Some protesters claimed the police used excessive force.

Fire authorities said they had treated six people for minor injuries at the polling station and the vote counting center since Thursday night.

Three of them, including a woman in her 40s who complained of a headache, were sent to the hospital.

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