Election watchdog raided again over alleged data manipulation

Lead

South Korean investigators raided the National Election Commission (NEC) on Friday as part of an expanding probe into suspected data manipulation in the June 3 local elections, Yonhap News Agency reported. The joint prosecution-police task force said it began a search and seizure at the NEC's headquarters in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, and at other local commissions in the capital, Gyeonggi Province and North Chungcheong Province.

Coverage Comparison

Reporting by Yonhap News Agency highlights two key developments in the investigation. In an August 3 report, Yonhap detailed significant gaps between the number of voters who cast ballots in the June 3 local elections and official vote counts, suggesting possible data manipulation by the NEC. A subsequent August 7 report said investigators raided the NEC to secure evidence, citing suspicions that NEC workers manipulated computer system statistics without reporting them to their superiors to cover up errors in voter turnout rates.

Both reports frame the investigation as focused on alleged data manipulation and ballot shortages, with the August 7 article noting that the raid on Friday was the second such action, following an earlier search on July 23. The task force, launched in June, is also investigating ballot shortages reported on Election Day, an unprecedented event that forced some voters to turn back without casting their ballots.

Key Claims

Significant gaps have been found between the number of voters who cast ballots in the June 3 local elections and official vote counts, Yonhap reported, citing its own analysis of voter numbers reported every hour at each polling station. The analysis found discrepancies at 337, or 78.9 percent, of Seoul's 427 administrative districts. For example, at a polling station in Gwanak Ward's Samseong-dong, the total number of voters who cast ballots at the close of polls was 7,680, but the ballot count was 7,299, a difference of 381. At a station in Seongbuk Ward's Samseon-dong, the numbers were 7,454 and 7,270, a gap of 184.

The task force has found evidence suggesting that NEC officials and election workers covered up errors in turnout, according to Yonhap. The report described a pattern where, if a polling station erroneously inputted 1,000 voters instead of 100 at a certain hour, the difference of 900 was allocated evenly across nine other polling stations until the actual turnout at those nine matched the higher number.

Investigators suspect some election workers bypassed the official authorization process and adjusted figures arbitrarily at the instruction of NEC officials, Yonhap reported. The NEC discloses voter turnout every hour on election day based on figures reported by election management workers at each polling station, and the task force believes these figures may have been manipulated.

The investigation has identified alleged data manipulation in Seoul's southern wards of Gangnam and Seocho, and in Gimpo and Uiwang in Gyeonggi, Yonhap reported. The investigation is expected to widen as signs of similar activity have been found in other parts of the country, according to the report.

With the latest revelation of gaps between voter numbers and official counts, the task force has reportedly widened its investigation to look into whether data manipulation also occurred after polls closed, Yonhap said.