Democratic Party Gwangju City Branch Primary Faces Another Error... ARS Voting Fails for Specific Carrier Users

Voting Calls Not Received by Party Members with Voting Rights...

"Check for Spam" Advised, Error Identified Only After Delay

Response and Schedule Changes Came 3-4 Hours Later...

Confusion as Some Gave Up Voting, Backlash from Candidates

System Issues Recur After 2022...

Concerns Raised Over Reliability of Primary Management

The Gwangju City Branch of the Democratic Party of Korea experienced confusion during the primary election voting process for basic councilor candidates due to ARS (Automatic Response System) reception errors that occurred depending on the telecommunications provider.

According to the Gwangju City Branch and others on March 18, during the ARS (Automatic Response System) voting for party members with voting rights held the previous day, a problem arose in which party members using a specific telecommunications provider did not receive the voting calls. From the very start of voting, there were continued inquiries stating, "The call is not coming through," but the city branch responded by advising, "Please check whether the number is marked as spam."

After repeated inquiries on the matter, the branch belatedly began verifying the issue and identified that the problem was occurring only among users of a specific telecommunications provider. It was confirmed that the AI (Artificial Intelligence) system of the provider had classified the caller ID of the polling agency as spam, preventing the voting calls from being delivered.

The city branch became aware of the situation about three to four hours after the voting began, and took steps to remove the spam classification and adjust the voting schedule. The city branch explained, "The eligible party members for voting have not changed, and the ARS voting calls were made to the same members a total of five times—three times yesterday and twice today."

However, confusion persisted as some party members gave up voting due to delays and changes in the schedule, and there was backlash among candidates as well. One candidate stated, "Party members ended up giving up after waiting for phone calls all day," adding, "The city branch, which is responsible for managing the primary, only exacerbated the confusion."

As a result, the ballot counting and tabulation schedule was also delayed, and the announcement of the basic councilor candidates was postponed from the originally planned 11:30 p.m. on March 18 to 1:00 a.m. on March 19.

This is not the first time a similar issue has occurred in a primary run by the Gwangju City Branch. During the 2022 local elections, ARS voting system errors also led to some votes being invalidated and a subsequent re-vote in the Dong-gu mayor and Nam-gu mayoral primaries.

Some have raised concerns over the repeated occurrence of such problems, pointing out the need to improve the management of the primary process. One basic councilor candidate commented, "The exercise of voting rights by party members has been hampered," and stressed, "Measures are needed to prevent recurrence."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.