Special prosecutor team investigating the NEC searches Gwangju City Election Commission in Gyeonggi Province over 'forged vote-counting sheets'

[Financial News] A special prosecutor team led by Special Prosecutor Lee Tae-han, searched the Gwangju City Election Commission in Gyeonggi Province. The team said it had found indications that an employee of the Gwangju City commission concealed and forged a vote-counting tally sheet, causing the superintendent of education election results to differ from the actual vote totals, and that the commission later intervened to cover this up.
The special prosecutor team tasked with investigating allegations of violations of citizens’ voting rights, including a shortage of ballots in the 9th Nationwide Simultaneous Local Elections, said in a media notice on the morning of the 10th that it had obtained a search warrant from a court on charges including violations of the Public Official Election Act, and was searching the Gyeonggi Provincial Election Commission and the Gwangju City Election Commission in Gyeonggi Province. The operation involved 11 people: one prosecutor, eight investigators and two forensic investigators.
The special prosecutor team identified suspected wrongdoing while examining an incident involving the erroneous entry of vote-counting results at the Gwangju City Election Commission in connection with the Gyeonggi Province superintendent of education election in the 9th Nationwide Simultaneous Local Elections. An employee of the Gwangju City commission concealed and forged a vote-counting tally sheet, causing the results to differ from the actual totals, and there are indications that the commission later intervened to conceal the concealment and forgery. A vote-counting tally sheet is a document used to record and finalize the number of votes each candidate received during the counting process.
The special prosecutor team plans to determine whether the NEC was involved as an organization through this search. Whether this was an individual employee’s misconduct or a cover-up at the commission level is a key turning point in the investigation.
The erroneous entry had already been made public. On June 11, the Gyeonggi Provincial Election Commission issued a “Public Apology for the Erroneous Entry of Vote-Counting Results,” stating, “We offer our deepest apologies for the erroneous entry of vote-counting results during the counting process at the Seongnam City Jungwon-gu Election Commission and the Gwangju City Election Commission in connection with the Gyeonggi Province superintendent of education election.”
The apology at the time named two election commissions, but the Seongnam City Jungwon-gu Election Commission was not included among the targets of this search. This indicates that the special prosecutor team found signs of concealment and forgery only at the Gwangju City commission; how it will handle the Jungwon-gu case has not yet been disclosed.
An official from the special prosecutor team said, “Crimes such as an NEC employee’s concealment and forgery of vote-counting tally sheets are serious offenses that can shake the foundations of democracy and fundamentally undermine the fairness of the electoral system,” adding, “We intend to clearly establish the facts to determine the exact cause and prevent a recurrence.”

[email protected] Kim Dong-gyu Reporter