[Anchor]

At the third parliamentary hearing to investigate the shortage of ballot papers, the National Election Commission (NEC) apologized for mounting criticism over recent controversies regarding time-by-time voter turnout manipulation. However, it maintained that it was not election fraud since even a data entry error does not affect the final vote count. In response, the commission introduced improvement measures, such as conducting sample surveys on voter turnout.

Reporter Kim Bo-mi has the details.

[Reporter]

From the so-called time-travel data entry, where the number of hourly voters was entered an hour early, to copy-and-paste voter numbers that increased by exactly 100 people every hour from morning to evening.

Regarding the recently exposed controversies over voter turnout manipulation, the National Election Commission admitted to the data entry errors and issued an apology during the third hearing of the National Assembly's Special Committee on State Investigation held today (August 10).

[Wi Chul-hwan / Acting Chairperson, National Election Commission: I feel deeply sorry to the public and all committee members for undermining the credibility of the election data.]

However, the NEC explained that the hourly number of voters is merely provisional data that inevitably has discrepancies depending on the time of entry, tallying, and reporting.

The commission also stated that the entry errors were not intentional manipulation and had no impact on vote shares, adding that it cannot agree with claims that this constitutes election fraud.

[Kang Dong-wan / Acting Secretary-General, National Election Commission: The instances of data entry errors during the voter turnout input process and altering the final vote count results are situations that cannot be connected at all.]

Nevertheless, a barrage of criticism followed, accusing the commission of complacency after shattering public trust.

[Kim Eun-hye / People Power Party Lawmaker: What do you mean there was no intent? You distributed the numbers to other polling stations and entered false figures because you were afraid of getting caught by the public.]

[Seo Bum-soo / People Power Party Lawmaker: Isn't this too complacent? Is this really all you need to do? Does it only matter if the final voter turnout is correct?]

[Wi Chul-hwan / Acting Chairperson, National Election Commission: I believe we should provide accurate information in real time.]

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As improvement measures, the NEC proposed extending the disclosure cycle of voter turnout from one hour to two hours, or selecting sample polling stations to survey voter turnout.

However, critics argue that because hourly voter turnout figures are crucial basic information related to citizens' exercise of voting rights, the measures announced by the NEC are administrative-convenience-driven ideas that actually weaken the informativeness of the data.

Rival parties clashed over the recount issue at the Olympic Park counting center in Seoul.

The People Power Party maintained that the recount scheduled for August 18th should be renegotiated, claiming 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: To evade their own political stance, Representative Jang Dong-hyuk is dragging this situation out to visit Olympic Park.]

Meanwhile, the public recommendation committee for selecting special counsel candidates for the NEC is set to finalize two candidates on August 14th.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
Reported by Lee Seung-hwan and Shin Dong-hwan | Video by Seunghee Lee