Lee Jae-myung Arrest Motion Vote, Counting Delayed Amid Controversy Over Invalid Ballots

During the National Assembly vote on the arrest motion for Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, there were votes that were difficult to determine as either invalid or abstentions, causing a delay in the announcement of the voting results.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 27th, Speaker Kim Jin-pyo stated at the plenary session of the National Assembly, "During the counting process, it seems there were votes that were hard to distinguish as either abstentions or invalid votes." He added, "The counting has been paused now, but in my opinion, after excluding these two votes and continuing the count for the rest, if the outcome hinges on these two votes, then the voting will be stopped and a legal procedure will be undertaken to verify whether these two votes are abstentions or invalid votes."

For the arrest motion, "가" (Ga) is used to indicate approval, and "부" (Bu) is used to indicate opposition, both written in standard Korean characters. Any votes marked with Chinese characters or other than the standard Korean characters are considered invalid.

Currently, the National Assembly has not completed the vote count even after 80 minutes since the vote began immediately following Lee's personal statement, due to this issue.

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