Residents gather outside the No. 2 polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday, after voting hours were extended to 10 p.m. due to a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections. (Yonhap) A ballot shortage at a polling station in Seoul's Songpa-gu triggered a tense standoff late Wednesday, turning an election management failure into a dispute over voting rights as counting got underway in Korea's local elections.Crowds gathered at one of Jamsil’s polling stations after voting there was extended because of a shortage of ballots, Yonhap News Agency reported.Some protesters demanded that ballots cast at the station be invalidated and that the ballot box not be removed from the site.The polling station had earlier extended voting from the official 6 p.m. closing time to 10 p.m., but only for voters who had received waiting tickets before polls closed.The disruption came as the main opposition People Power Party called for vote counting in Seoul to be suspended, citing ballot shortages at several polling stations in the capital.Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, the opposition People Power Party candidate, also said the count should be halted until preliminary measures were completed in areas affected by the shortages.The controversy added another layer of uncertainty to election night, as the National Election Commission faced criticism over its handling of ballot distribution at polling stations.NEC Secretary General Huh Chul-hoon issued a public apology for causing "great confusion and concern to the public."The shortage was especially acute in Songpa-gu, where election authorities were found to have printed ballots amounting to only about half of the district’s eligible voters.