The People Power Party will rerun a runoff vote for the post of organization committee chief in the Yongin-A constituency in Gyeonggi Province after allegations that some party members were never called. The party concluded it needed to ensure the fairness of the election after confirming that automated response system calls had not reached some dues-paying members during the vote.
Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the People Power Party, said on Facebook on the 12th that the party "had no choice but to conclude that a rerun of the Yongin-A runoff must be held."
The party had held the runoff on Oct. 8 by automated response system, open to all dues-paying members in Yongin-A. Yoon Jae-bok defeated Supreme Council member Yang Hyang-ja and was elected organization committee chief. Yoon was due to be formally appointed after a Supreme Council vote, but the leadership put the decision on hold after it emerged that some members had not received the automated calls.
Park Sung-hoon, the party's chief spokesperson, said that "in the course of the automated vote held during the holiday period, one telecommunications carrier flagged the calls as spam, and about 40 calls were confirmed not to have been delivered to dues-paying members." He added that Yang had accepted the outcome but that final approval was put on hold in the face of objections from some Supreme Council members.
Jang pointed to electoral fairness as the reason for the rerun. "Even if the two candidates agreed to accept the results of the automated vote, I believe that if members were deprived of their right to vote because of a problem with the system, that has to be put right," he said. "This is a question of electoral fairness, regardless of how many members were unable to vote or whether it affected the outcome of the contest."
Jang also signaled a full review of the party's internal voting systems. "There have been objections, large and small, every time the party has conducted an automated vote," he said. "I have instructed that we take this opportunity to conduct a full review of the party's internal voting system and prepare measures to improve it."
"I will make sure this is handled more carefully and thoroughly so that it never happens again," he said, apologizing to "the two candidates who took part in the contest and to fellow party members."