Two Songpa Election Commission Officials Booked for Derogation of Duty Over Ballot Shortage

The joint prosecution-police investigation headquarters formed to uncover the truth behind the infringement on citizens' right to vote is summoning and questioning Election Official A and Election Section 1 Chief B of the Songpa District Election Commission today (July 28) as suspects on charges of dereliction of duty.

According to the legal community, the joint investigation team led by Kim Tae-hoon, 3rd Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, has booked them in connection with the ballot paper shortage incident during the June 3 local elections.

A and the other official are accused of failing to take measures to prevent a ballot shortage despite prior circumstances that allowed them to foresee that such a shortage could occur at specific polling stations during the June 3 local elections.

The charges also include ignoring requests from frontline polling stations for additional ballots and failing to respond immediately.

These individuals are suspects newly uncovered and booked by the joint investigation team during its investigation following its launch.

Previously, the joint investigation team had questioned reported Election Commission officials as suspects, but this marks the first time it is questioning suspects it has directly booked.

The joint investigation team has also uncovered and is investigating circumstances where a single ballot serial number was redundantly printed on two ballot papers at a polling station under the jurisdiction of the Songpa District Election Commission.

Reference questioning of two National Election Commission officials regarding allegations of overseas-trip-like junkets by former National Election Commission Chairman Noh Tae-ak and others is also scheduled for today.

The search and seizure of the National Election Commission servers regarding the voter turnout and other statistics manipulation incidents are also ongoing.

The joint investigation team has uncovered and is investigating the fact that working-level Election Commission employees in charge of managing regional polling stations during the June 3 local elections arbitrarily modified statistical figures in the election management system to cover up mistakes in misentering the number of voters.

The allegation is that they manipulated statistics by having working-level staff arbitrarily enter false numbers, ignoring the procedure of reporting to superiors and obtaining approval to modify figures when misentries occurred.

Accordingly, the joint investigation team has secured relevant materials since the 23rd by conducting searches and seizures at the National Election Commission in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, as well as the Songpa, Gangnam, and Seocho District Election Commissions.

For servers where securing materials takes a considerable amount of time, the search and seizure was suspended over the weekend and resumed yesterday.

Once the analysis of the seized items is complete, the joint investigation team plans to summon relevant individuals to verify the circumstances and scope of the statistical manipulation.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.