Joint Investigation Headquarters of Prosecutors and Police Summons Two Songpa-gu Election Commission Employees as Suspects Over 'Ballot Shortage'

[Financial News] Two employees of the Songpa-gu Election Commission will be summoned by prosecutors over allegations of dereliction of duty in connection with the ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections.
According to the legal community on the 28th, the Joint Investigation Headquarters of Prosecutors and Police for uncovering violations of citizens' voting rights, led by Kim Tae-hoon, the third deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, will question Songpa-gu Election Commission election officer A and Section Chief B as suspects on dereliction-of-duty charges.
A and others are accused of failing to take preventive measures even though they could have foreseen a ballot shortage at a specific polling station during the June 3 local elections. They are also suspected of ignoring requests for additional ballots from frontline polling stations and failing to respond immediately. They were newly booked as suspects after their alleged involvement was identified during the task force's investigation.
The task force has previously questioned NEC officials who were reported to authorities, but this is the first time it has summoned and questioned suspects directly booked by the investigation team. It is also investigating signs that the same ballot serial number was printed on two ballots at a polling station under the Songpa-gu Election Commission.
The task force will also question two NEC officials on the same day as reference witnesses in connection with allegations of 'overseas junket trips' involving former NEC Chairman Rho Tae-ak and others. In addition, it will continue searching the NEC servers in relation to the alleged manipulation of turnout statistics.
The task force has been investigating after finding that working-level NEC employees in charge of local polling stations during the June 3 local elections arbitrarily altered statistical figures in the election management system to conceal mistakes in entering the number of voters. The allegations state that they manipulated the statistics by entering false numbers on their own, ignoring the required procedure of reporting the error to superiors and obtaining approval before correcting the figures.
To that end, the task force has been searching the NEC headquarters in Gyeonggi Gwacheon City and the election commissions in Songpa District, Gangnam District, and Seocho District since the 23rd and has secured related materials. Searches of servers, which take a long time to secure data from, were suspended over the weekend and resumed on the 27th.
Once the analysis of the seized materials is complete, the task force plans to summon the people involved and closely examine how the manipulation occurred and the extent of it.
[email protected] Kim Dong-gyu Reporter