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The joint police-prosecution investigation headquarters, which is probing suspicions of rigged voter turnout during the past local elections, has conducted raids on nine Election Commission offices nationwide. Circumstances have been detected where the number of voters was incorrectly entered and the figures were subsequently adjusted, and authorities plan to investigate whether the National Election Commission issued related directives.
Reporting by Jeon Yeonnam.
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The nine locations raided by the joint investigation headquarters include the National Election Commission, the election commissions of Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and North Chungcheong Province, as well as the local election commissions in Gimpo and Uiwang in Gyeonggi Province, Jincheon in North Chungcheong Province, and Gangnam-gu and Seocho-gu in Seoul.
This massive raid comes half a month after the initial search and seizure targeting the National Election Commission and other offices on June 23 over suspicions of voter turnout manipulation, marking an effort to secure additional physical evidence.
The warrants specify charges including the falsification of official electronic records and obstruction of official duties.
The joint investigation headquarters is looking into circumstances where Election Commission working-level officials allegedly misentered the number of voters and then arbitrarily adjusted the figures during the June 3 local elections.
During the investigation, the joint headquarters found that on election day, an official at the National Election Commission sent an email to regional election commissions stating, "If it is not a major error, you can add or subtract it in the next hourly report."
With this official—who effectively made it possible to arbitrarily alter voter turnout figures at polling stations—now booked, the number of Election Commission officials booked as suspects has increased to three.
The joint headquarters also secured records showing that when inquiries regarding corrections due to misentered voter counts came in from places such as Gimpo, the National Election Commission side created and sent an Excel file containing specific methods for adjusting the figures.
Through internal messenger logs and emails seized during the raids, the joint headquarters plans to verify whether the email sent by the National Election Commission official was actually used as a working directive by frontline city, county, and district election commissions.
(Video Editing: Yeojin Ahn)
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