It has been revealed that there were at least 72 cases in which the National Election Commission (NEC) nationwide modified voter counts on the day of the June 3 local elections.

In some regions, the number of voters increased by more than 6,000 all at once, and in some cases, errors were corrected only 12 hours after the initial entry.

According to the "hourly voter count modification report history" submitted by the NEC to the office of People Power Party Representative Kim Eun-hye, 72 modifications were made across 56 out of 255 district, city, and county election commissions nationwide on election day.

To modify information entered into the election management system, the specific reason for the correction must be stated.

Provincial and metropolitan election commissions are required to review the reason and approve the modification.

However, actual reports frequently contained only abstract explanations such as "correction due to omission" or "change in voter count."

Geomdan-gu in Incheon reported the voter count as 54,665 as of 4:00 PM, but later changed it to 61,276.

This is an increase of 6,611 voters at once.

Cases where errors were left uncorrected for a long time were also identified.

Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, corrected a voter count error from 7:00 AM some 12 hours later at 7:00 PM.

In Sangdang-gu, Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, and Hongseong-gun, South Chungcheong Province, voter counts for different time slots were mistakenly entered identically and subsequently corrected.

The joint investigation headquarters of prosecutors and police is investigating circumstances indicating that some election commission officials, after realizing voter counts were incorrectly entered, distributed the excessively entered figures to other polling stations without following proper modification procedures.

The joint investigation team suspects that officials exploited the hourly updating of voting statistics to adjust voter counts at other polling stations, subsequently reducing the increase in later time slots to eliminate the overall discrepancy.

Such circumstances have reportedly been detected in two regions in Gyeonggi Province, including Gimpo, as well as the Chungcheong region.

The joint investigation headquarters has conducted raids on the National Election Commission and regional election offices, while checking whether similar changes to voting statistics without leaving records occurred in other areas.

Reported by Kim Jiuk | Video by Choi Gang-san | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News