[Anchor]

New suspicions have emerged regarding the National Election Commission voter count manipulation scandal. It has been revealed that during the past local elections, the National Election Commission gave an incomprehensible directive to a regional election commission that reported an error in entering the voter turnout.

Reporter Son Hyeong-an has the details.

[Reporter]

This is a document submitted by the National Election Commission to the office of People Power Party lawmaker Kim Eun-hye.

On the day of the main voting for the June 3 local elections, the North Chungcheong Provincial Election Commission mistakenly entered the number of voters as of 10 a.m. at the No. 2 polling station in Jincheon-eup, Jincheon-gun, as 501, which was higher than the actual number of people who voted. When the provincial commission inquired about what to do, the National Election Commission instructed them to distribute and modify the overestimated number of voters across eight other polling districts, according to the document.

The instruction was to reduce the 501 voters at the No. 2 polling station to 301, and instead add 200 more voters, 25 each, to eight other polling stations.

The document records that the National Election Commission gave the exact same directive to the No. 2 polling station in Gurae-dong, Gimpo, where the number of voters was entered as 2,000 higher than the actual count.

This meant that instead of correcting the error caused by misentering the number of voters according to the actual figures, they ordered a haphazard modification.

The National Election Commission wrote in the document that the reason for issuing such an absurd directive was the concern that correcting the voter count to match the actual numbers would reduce the total number of disclosed voters and thus raise suspicions.

[Kim Eun-hye / People Power Party Lawmaker: This is a clear election rigging crime committed by the National Election Commission with intent, specificity, and repetitiveness, and an infringement on the people's right to vote.]

Day before yesterday (August 2), People Power Party lawmaker Joo Jin-woo, who raised suspicions of voter count manipulation during last year's presidential election, stated that during the 2024 general election, a so-called twin polling districts phenomenon occurred.

He stated that the number of voters in the No. 1 and No. 6 polling districts in Bulgwang 1-dong, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, increased identically in units of 100 or 200 for six hours.

Claiming that five pairs of such twin polling districts, totaling 10 locations, appeared nationwide at the time, Lawmaker Joo argued that this can be seen as circumstantial evidence of the Election Commission arbitrarily fabricating and entering numbers.

In response to SBS inquiries regarding the raised suspicions, the National Election Commission only stated, "We will actively cooperate with the ongoing investigation."

(Photo courtesy of the offices of People Power Party lawmakers Kim Eun-hye and Joo Jin-woo | Video reported by Shin Dong-hwan, Lee Seung-hwan, and Yoon Hyung | Video edited by Won Hyung-hee | Design by Park Tae-young and Kim Ye-ji)