A special counsel team investigating alleged misconduct at South Korea's election authorities has launched a compulsory investigation into seven offices, including the National Election Commission, over the falsification of hourly voter turnout figures at 30 district election commissions during the ninth nationwide local elections. At some commissions, officials later altered overall statistics to make the numbers appear normal after the turnout figures entered for a particular hour exceeded the actual final tally, the team found.
The special counsel team, led by special counsel Lee Tae-han, said on the 15th that it was conducting searches and seizures at the National Election Commission, four provincial election commissions in South Chungcheong Province, Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, South Gyeongsang Province and Gangwon State, and two district commissions in Busan's Nam-gu and Seogwipo on Jeju.
The raids follow the team's finding that voter turnout figures were falsely entered at 30 district election commissions nationwide. For the past several weeks, the team has stationed digital forensics investigators at the National Election Commission to analyze log data on hourly turnout at polling stations across the country. It also questioned about 70 officials at town and district election commissions who were responsible for real-time turnout reporting during the local elections.
As a result, the team identified false turnout entries in 25 additional areas nationwide, on top of the five areas previously confirmed by the joint police-prosecution investigation headquarters — Seocho-gu and Gangnam-gu in Seoul, Gimpo and Uiwang in Gyeonggi Province, and Jincheon County in North Chungcheong Province.
The team also found cases in which figures were further revised after statistics differing from the actual turnout had been entered, in order to make them appear normal. At some commissions, after incorrectly entered turnout figures for a particular hour exceeded the actual final tally, the overall numbers were falsely revised again afterward, the investigation found. In other cases, officials did not correct the false entries and instead kept turnout figures for subsequent hours unchanged or entered them to match a fixed rate of increase.
Through the raids, the team plans to concentrate its investigation on determining why the false entries occurred across the country and who was responsible. Whether there was organized involvement beyond the actions of individual officials in charge is also a key focus of the probe.
The special counsel, which was launched on the 7th of last month, is investigating 12 allegations, including a shortage of ballot papers during the ninth nationwide local elections, manipulation of voting statistics, junket-style overseas trips by election commission officials, irregular hiring and promotion favors, and preferential no-bid (sole-source) contracts and collusion with vendors. Since its launch, it has received and reviewed original investigation records and evidence from the joint police-prosecution investigation headquarters and has questioned complainants.
On the 17th of the same month, it began its first compulsory investigation by searching 10 offices in total, including the National Election Commission and regional commissions in Gyeonggi Province, Incheon, Busan and Daegu. On the 14th, it continued compulsory measures after detecting suspected collusion with a particular vendor in a 5 billion won ($3.5 million) project to produce polling station supply sets.
"Falsely entering hourly voter turnout figures is a grave crime that undermines public trust in the fairness and transparency of elections, breeds distrust in the electoral system itself and threatens the very foundation of democracy," an official with the special counsel said. "We plan to concentrate our investigative resources on determining the cause and clearly establishing where responsibility lies."