During the June 3 local elections, it was confirmed that the Election Commission incorrectly entered the number of voters in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, as well as Uiwang and Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province.
According to data submitted by the National Election Commission (NEC) to the National Assembly's Special Committee on State Administration Investigation, a total of three polling stations—including those in Jincheon, Uiwang, and Gimpo—incorrectly entered data by maintaining the total number of voters while adjusting the figures for individual polling stations.
When problems arose, instead of correcting the overall total number of voters, the Election Commission chose to split and reflect the figures across other polling stations within the same region.
In the case of Polling Station No. 2 in Gurae-dong, Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, during the process of entering hourly voter numbers from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, figures were duplicated and entered by adding the cumulative number of voters for that time slot to the count from the preceding time slot.
Consequently, an Election Commission official arbitrarily adjusted the figures by dividing and distributing the excessively entered number of voters among the hourly counts from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM across eight nearby polling stations.
Similarly, at Polling Station No. 2 in Jincheon-eup, Jincheon County, North Chungcheong Province, figures were excessively entered in the same manner from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM. To match the erroneously entered figures, a method of freezing and fixing the number of voters from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM was used.
At Polling Station No. 3 in Bugok-dong, Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, the number of voters at 2:00 PM was incorrectly entered as 1,118 instead of 832, and the incorrect figure was maintained without correction until the closing time.
When entry errors occurred in some eup, myeon, and dong offices, an official from the Election Management Division of the National Election Commission, upon receiving related inquiries, issued a guideline instructing them to distribute and correct the excessively entered amounts among other polling stations.
While the Election Commission maintains that voter count entries at the eup, myeon, and dong levels are tentative data and can be modified without separate approval, the joint prosecution and police investigation headquarters is expanding its investigation, placing weight on the possibility of circumstances involving voter turnout manipulation.
In particular, as circumstances of similar figure tampering were detected not only in Gyeonggi Province but also in the Chungcheong regional election commission during internal messenger investigations, the joint investigation headquarters is intensively questioning officials regarding whether there was an institutional cover-up.
Reported by Lee Hyeon-yeong | Video by Choi Kang-san | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.