Election watchdog special prosecutor: 30 local election commissions falsified voter counts

Special Prosecutor Lee Tae-han's team, investigating the National Election Commission, has confirmed that election commissions across the country falsified hourly voter counts during the June 3 local elections, and launched search-and-seizure operations targeting seven locations, including the NEC headquarters.

The special prosecutor's team said Thursday it had confirmed that 30 local election commissions nationwide had entered false hourly voter figures into election management and vote-counting reporting systems.

The 25 commissions identified by the special prosecutor's team are in Seoul's Guro, Mapo and Seongbuk districts; Guri, Pyeongtaek, Suwon, Yongin, Seongnam, Namyangju, Yeoju and Dongducheon in Gyeonggi Province; Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province; Cheonan's Seobuk-gu and Dongnam-gu and Geumsan-gun in South Chungcheong Province; Nam-gu in Busan; Changwon in South Gyeongsang Province; Buk-gu in Gwangju; Mokpo, Gwangyang and Hwasun in South Jeolla Province; Chuncheon, Jeongseon and Hwacheon in Gangwon Province; and Seogwipo in Jeju.

Added to those are five local commissions — Seoul's Seocho and Gangnam districts, Gimpo and Uiwang in Gyeonggi Province, and Jincheon in North Chungcheong Province — where a joint police-prosecution investigative team had previously confirmed falsified entries.

The commissions are believed to have falsified voter counts in various ways — either by retroactively altering hourly figures or by entering identical values across time slots based on fabricated totals.

The team said it reached these findings after stationing forensic investigators at the NEC headquarters to analyze log data on hourly voter counts from polling stations nationwide, and after questioning more than 70 civil servants from township-, county- and district-level election commissions.

To determine the scale of the falsified figures and the extent of those involved, the team launched raids Thursday at around 9:10 a.m. on a total of seven locations: the NEC headquarters, four provincial commissions covering South Chungcheong Province, Gwangju, South Gyeongsang Province and Gangwon Province, and two local commissions in Busan's Nam-gu and Seogwipo in Jeju.

A total of 31 personnel were deployed for the searches, including three prosecutors, 20 investigators and eight digital forensics specialists.

The special prosecutor's team said it plans to focus its investigative efforts on determining the cause of the falsifications and establishing accountability.