By Joyce Lee and Jack Kim
SEOUL, June 5 (Reuters) - Over 6,000 people protested on Friday night at a vote-counting centre in Seoul over a shortage of ballot papers, demanding a re-run after voting in local elections was disrupted, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The crowd gathered at the SK Olympic Handball Stadium, where votes were counted from Wednesday's elections to pick mayors, provincial governors, county officers and members of local assemblies, Yonhap said, citing unofficial police estimates of its size.
Livestreams showed people chanting and bearing placards with the slogan "Election re-run!", along with national flags. A Reuters witness saw cars continuing to arrive at the stadium at 2 a.m. (1700 GMT) on Saturday. Seoul police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ELECTION COMMISSION HEAD RESIGNS
Hours earlier, the head of the National Election Commission (NEC) had said he would step down to take responsibility for the shortage of ballot papers in some districts.
Roh Tae-ak said there could be no excuse for a failure that had harmed the public and its commitment to the democratic process, and understandably created distrust.
Ballot papers ran out at 50 of the total 14,300 polling stations and had to be restocked, while voting was disrupted at 22 polling stations due to delays in receiving supplies, an NEC official later told a briefing.
At some locations, voters waited for hours into the night after polls officially closed at 6 p.m. (0900 GMT) on Wednesday. At one polling station in Seoul's Songpa district, an angry crowd set up a blockade and prevented officials from taking ballot boxes to the stadium after voting ended.
Protesters remained in the rain until Friday morning, when hundreds of police escorted commission officials to help them retrieve the last two ballot boxes before the count officially ended on Friday afternoon.
The NEC official said ballot papers had been printed for only 50% of eligible voters because of the high turnout in two days of early voting last week, and that, for the three days of voting, there had been enough for 73% of eligible voters.
In the event, the final turnout was 63%.
Government officials conceded that the incident amounted to a failure to safeguard the public's democratic rights.
Roh, a Supreme Court justice who has by convention led the independent commission and its large secretariat, which oversees all elections, said outside experts would be asked to investigate, and he would accept the panel's conclusions.
(Reporting by Jack Kim, Joyce Lee and Brenda Goh Editing by Ed Davies, Kevin Liffey and Alistair Bell)
