Following a recount of the Chungbuk Chungju mayoral election, which drew nationwide attention after being decided by a mere 124 votes, People Power Party winner Lee Dong-seok's retention of the mayoral seat has been officially finalized. The vote margin decreased by just 2 votes, from the original 124 to 122.

On the 15th, the Chungbuk Election Commission fully re-tallied approximately 108,000 ballots from the June 3 Chungju mayoral election by hand at the Korea National University of Transportation gymnasium. The recount results finalized with Mayor Lee Dong-seok receiving 52,961 votes and former Democratic Party candidate Maeng Jung-seob receiving 52,839 votes, resulting in a 122-vote margin. During the re-verification of the existing 2,277 invalid ballots, two of Mayor Lee's ballots were invalidated and one of former candidate Maeng's ballots was restored, but this did not affect the final outcome.

However, prior to the announcement of the final results determining the winner, the recount site experienced fierce clashes and disruption. Former candidate Maeng personally bore the entire recount cost of 54.87 million won, but confronted the Election Commission just before the start of the recount was declared, strongly demanding the public disclosure of scanned ballot image files. Election Commission Chairperson Cho Mi-yeon issued three warnings to evacuate before mobilizing police riot police to forcibly remove former candidate Maeng. Due to this process, the originally scheduled recount barely began after being delayed by about 30 minutes.

Having raised suspicions regarding reliability immediately after the election—pointing out that the number of invalid votes far exceeded ten times the vote margin—former candidate Maeng's camp faced a bitter outcome, suffering forced eviction after their demands for transparency in the recount process were rejected, alongside failing to recapture the mayoral seat.

Reporter Kim Do-hyung, Korea Youth Media (kimdiagram@kym.io.kr)