Paper Problems: South Korea's Election Fiasco Explained

Send us Fan Mail

South Korea just held its 9th nationwide local elections on June 3, 2026, and what should have been a routine referendum on President Lee Jae-myung's first year turned into a genuine mess. Polling stations in Seoul started running out of ballot paper mid-day. Voters waited hours. Some gave up and left. In Songpa and Gangnam, people were still voting at 10 p.m. And then the protesters showed up to block the ballot boxes.

Joe and Shawn break down what actually happened, why the National Election Commission's explanation is both accurate and embarrassing, and why "we ran out of paper" is such a uniquely devastating failure for an institution that was already under scrutiny. They also take a longer look at Korea's post-1987 democratic history, a list of election fiascos that includes vote-buying rice bags, NIS agents running smear campaigns online, COVID ballot chaos, and a 2022 election where the main controversy was that ballots were being transported in plastic baskets you'd buy at Daiso.

Korea's democracy is real. It's also messy, loudly contested, and occasionally embarrassing. This episode is about both of those things being true at the same time.

Korea's #1 ghost and dark history walking tour. Book at DarkSideOfSeoul.com

Get your comic at DarkSideOfSeoul.com

Support the show

Join our Patreon to get more stuff

https://patreon.com/darksideofseoul

Book a tour of The Dark Side of Seoul Ghost Walk at https://darksideofseoul.com

Pitch your idea here. https://www.darksideofseoul.com/expats-of-the-wild-east/

Credits

Produced by Joe McPherson and Shawn Morrissey

Music by Soraksan

Top tier Patrons

Angel Earl
Joel Bonomini
Devon Hiphner
Gabi Palomino
Steve Marsh
Eva Sikora
Ron Chang
Mackenzie Moore
Hunter Winter
Cecilia Löfgren Dumas
Josephine Rydberg
Devin Buchanan
Ashley Wright
George Irion

Facebook Page |
Instagram

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.