SerpApi.Org
A joint police-prosecution task force investigating the shortage of ballots in the June 3 local elections raided the National Election Commission (NEC) on Thursday over allegations that election officials manipulated voter-count statistics.
The investigators have so far identified involvement by working-level officials at the national and Gyeonggi election commissions in arbitrarily altering hourly voter counts.
The individuals are suspected of falsifying public electronic records after entering incorrect voter figures and concealing the errors instead of reporting them to their superiors. Investigators also searched the NEC’s offices and the commission branches in Songpa, Gangnam and Seocho districts in southern Seoul to gather further evidence related to the ballot shortage.
This marks the first time evidence has surfaced showing the election commission’s statistical system may have been deliberately manipulated, which effectively marks a whole new level of offense regarding the June 3 election kerfuffle.
Investigators believe two working-level officials at the national and Gyeonggi commissions colluded to cover up an incorrect entry discovered while votes were being tallied in real time on election day.
Although procedure called for the error to be reported and corrected, the officials allegedly tried to hide the mistake by arbitrarily altering figures in the system.
The election commission releases turnout figures for cities, counties and districts nationwide every hour. Poll managers report voter counts from individual polling stations, which are compiled at the smaller administrative division level before being checked in turn by city, county or district election commissions, provincial election commissions and finally the NEC.
A Gyeonggi commission official allegedly entered several thousand voters at a station where only a few hundred had actually cast ballots. Rather than correcting the error, the official reportedly waited for the real turnout to catch up to the mistaken figure.
Investigators suspect the officials manipulated the real-time statistics by distributing the excess voter count across other polling stations so that turnout in any one area would not appear to spike suddenly.
For example, after mistakenly entering 2,000 voters at a station where only 200 had voted, they allegedly assigned 200 extra voters to several other stations and delayed further entries until turnout actually caught up.
Election commission employees are also suspected of discussing over an internal messenger service not reporting the incorrect count. Investigators believe a NEC official responsible for monitoring entries from regional commissions conspired with a Gyeonggi official through the messenger service, thereby leading to the alleged manipulation.
The changes are said not to have affected the final voter count or turnout, but the altered hourly figures may have influenced voter sentiment on election day.
The discovery of possible manipulation within the election commission has raised the stakes of the investigation, since it could expand into questions about the procedural legitimacy of the election. The allegations have also revealed that two working-level officials may have been able to set real-time voter counts and turnout figures at their discretion.
Investigators plan to analyze materials seized Thursday to determine who participated in any manipulation or whether senior officials knowingly allowed it. They will also examine whether voter counts were manipulated in a similar way outside the affected parts of Gyeonggi. The investigation could extend to past elections if further cases surface.
The task force said it intends to establish the facts behind all allegations separately from the political efforts to launch a special counsel investigation.
BY JEONG JIN-HO [[email protected]]
