Joint Investigation Headquarters Raids 9 Election Commission Offices to Probe Vote Count Modification Guidelines

[Anchor]

Regarding suspicions of false voter turnout entries, the joint police-prosecution investigation headquarters has conducted massive raids on nine election commission offices nationwide. Investigations have officially kicked into high gear to determine how the National Election Commission's (NEC) guidelines to add or subtract voter numbers in reports were executed on the ground.

Reporter Jeon Yeonnam has the details.

[Reporter]

The nine locations raided by the joint investigation headquarters today (August 7) include the National Election Commission, the election commissions of Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and North Chungcheong Province, as well as those in Gimpo and Uiwang in Gyeonggi Province, Jincheon in North Chungcheong Province, and Gangnam-gu and Seocho-gu in Seoul.

This marks a follow-up wave of massive raids to secure additional physical evidence, coming half a month after the first raids on the NEC and other offices regarding the alleged voter turnout manipulation on July 23.

The search warrants cite charges including the falsification of official electronic records and obstruction of official duties.

The joint investigation headquarters is investigating after catching indications that NEC officials arbitrarily adjusted numbers after incorrectly entering voter counts during the June 3 local elections.

During this process, the joint investigation headquarters confirmed that an NEC official sent an email on election day to regional election commissions stating, "If it is not a major error, you can add or subtract it in the next hourly report."

With the booking of this official—who practically enabled voter count figures to be arbitrarily altered at voting sites—the number of NEC officials booked as suspects has increased to three.

Furthermore, the joint investigation headquarters secured records showing that when inquiries regarding corrections for misentered voter counts came in from places like Gimpo, the NEC side created and sent an Excel file containing specific methods for adjusting the numbers.

Through internal messenger logs and emails seized during today's raids, the joint investigation headquarters plans to verify whether the emails sent by the NEC official were actually used as operational guidelines at frontline city, county, and district election commissions.

(Video Editing: Ahn Yeojin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.