Lee Jung-hyun, the People Power Party candidate who ran for mayor of the proposed South Jeolla-Gwangju integrated special city, has called on the National Election Commission to explain why the top two candidates received identical vote totals at multiple separate polling stations.
Lee said identical vote counts for the leading candidates had been confirmed at 10 locations across Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, as well as in parts of Incheon. "It is highly unusual for two candidates to record exactly the same vote totals simultaneously in entirely different areas — between a major city and a township, or between a mid-sized city and a rural village," he said.
He added that even a single such occurrence would be a statistical miracle on the order of one in 500 million, yet the pattern had appeared repeatedly across multiple locations. "The election commission must explain why urban centers, rural areas, island communities and industrial cities are all showing identical figures," he said.
Lee also said that verifying the results statistically would require access to ballot-sorting machine classification sheets, manual recount correction tables and final tally sheets. "The public has every reason to demand a full audit and the release of the underlying data," he said.
In South Jeolla Province, 10 polling stations recorded identical early vote totals for Democratic Party of Korea candidate Min Hyung-bae and Lee.
At stations in Geumsan-myeon, Goheung-gun and Songjeong 1-dong, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju, Min received 1,401 votes and Lee received 120 — the same figures at both locations.
In Samil-dong, Yeosu and Haui-myeon, Sinan-gun, Min received 506 votes and Lee 42. Nodong-myeon, Boseong-gun and Palgeum-myeon, Sinan-gun also both showed Min with 356 votes and Lee with 42.
Iyang-myeon, Hwasun-gun and Byeongyeong-myeon, Gangjin-gun likewise each recorded 444 votes for Min and 46 for Lee.
The South Jeolla Province Election Commission said it had analyzed the detailed vote counts from the affected stations and found that the overall data — including the number of registered voters, each candidate's vote totals and invalid ballots — differed between locations. "The matching vote totals for the leading candidates were a coincidental result," it said.
sij@heraldcorp.com
