KORThe National Election Commission, which sparked controversy by prematurely entering voter turnout figures 1-2 hours ahead of time, has claimed that these were merely provisional figures bound to have margins of error and were not fabricated. The improvement measures presented were also unrelated to preventing numerical manipulation.
Reporter Kim Bo-mi has the details.
The so-called time-travel manipulated entries, where hourly voter counts were entered an hour early.
And the copy-paste voter counts, where numbers were entered to increase by exactly 100 people every hour from morning to evening.
Regarding the recently exposed voter turnout manipulation controversies, the National Election Commission acknowledged the data entry errors and issued an apology yesterday (the 10th) during the 3rd hearing of the National Assembly's parliamentary investigation special committee.
[Wi Chul-hwan / Acting Chairperson, National Election Commission: I sincerely apologize to the public and the distinguished committee members for undermining the credibility of election data.]
However, the NEC explained that hourly voter counts are provisional figures that inevitably involve margins of error depending on the timing of entry, compilation, and reporting.
The commission also stated that the entry errors were neither intentional manipulations nor did they affect vote shares, making it impossible to agree with claims that this constituted election fraud.
[Kang Dong-wan / Acting Secretary-General, National Election Commission: The errors that occurred during the voter turnout data entry process and altering vote count results in the tabulation are situations that cannot be connected at all.]
Nevertheless, a barrage of criticism poured in, accusing the commission of complacent attitudes after shattering public trust.
[Kim Eun-hye / People Power Party Lawmaker: What do you mean there was no intent? You distributed numbers to other polling stations and entered false figures because you were afraid of getting caught by the public.]
[Seo Bum-su / People Power Party Lawmaker: Isn't this too complacent? Is it really enough to just do this? Does it only matter if the final voter turnout is correct?]
[Wi Chul-hwan / Acting Chairperson, National Election Commission: I believe we need to provide accurate information in real-time.]
As an improvement plan, the NEC proposed extending the disclosure cycle for hourly voter turnout from one hour to two hours, or selecting sample polling stations to survey voter turnout.
However, given that accurate hourly voter turnout is essential basic information related to the public's exercise of voting rights, critics argue that the measures announced by the NEC are administrative expediency that actually weakens the informational value.
Meanwhile, the ruling and opposition parties clashed over the recount issue at the Seoul Olympic Park counting center.
The People Power Party took the stance that the recount scheduled for the 18th should be renegotiated, arguing it must be linked to a special counsel investigation, while the Democratic Party boycotted the afternoon session, calling it a violation of the agreement.
[Lee Ki-heon / Democratic Party Lawmaker: Leader Jang Dong-hyuk is dragging out this situation to visit Olympic Park in order to evade their own political stance.]
Amidst this, the public recommendation committee for selecting special counsel candidates for the NEC will finalize two candidates on the 14th.
(Video by Lee Seung-hwan and Shin Dong-hwan | Video Editing by Lee Seung-hee)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.
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