The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a suit seeking to invalidate a 2022 parliamentary by-election in the southeastern city of Daegu, in which some ballots cast by COVID-19 patients were collected in plastic or shopping bags instead of regular ballot boxes. The top court made the ruling in the suit filed by a lawyer and 10 Daegu residents, who claimed that the results of the by-election, held on the sidelines of the presidential election, are invalid, because the principle of secret vote was not observed and there were probably forged ballots. At that time, the National Election Commission allowed COVID-19 patients in quarantine to participate in early voting of the by-election for one hour until 6 p.m. on March 5, 2022. But they were not allowed to put their ballots directly into the ballot boxes. Instead, election officials collected their ballots in plastic or shopping bags. The plaintiffs said it was questionable whether the controversially collected ballots were put into the regular ballot boxes. B ut the Supreme Court rejected all the claims by the plaintiffs. Election nullification lawsuits are handled by the Supreme Court as a single trial. Source: Yonhap News Agency