Gaps found between voter turnout, vote count from local elections

Seoul, on August 3, has uncovered significant discrepancies between the number of voters who cast their ballots during the June 3 local elections and the official vote counts, potentially indicating a novel form of data manipulation by the National Election Commission (NEC), according to Yonhap News Agency. The agency's analysis revealed that out of Seoul's 427 administrative districts, 337, or 78.9 percent, exhibited inconsistencies between the reported voter turnout and the actual ballot count.

For instance, at a polling station in Gwanak Ward's Samseong-dong, where 7,680 voters cast their ballots before the polls closed, the official tally from the same station was 7,299 - a difference of 381 voters. Similarly, at a polling station in Seongbuk Ward's Samseon-dong, where 7,454 voters were ultimately recorded by the end of the day, the ballot count was 7,270, resulting in a gap of 184 votes.

In response to the reported ballot shortages on Election Day, a prosecution-police task force was established in June to investigate the matter. However, the task force has since discovered evidence suggesting that NEC officials and election workers may have covered up errors in the turnout figures. The task force has found that if a polling station mistakenly inputted 1,000 voters instead of the actual 100 at a specific hour, the 900 difference was then evenly distributed across nine other polling stations until the discrepancy balanced out with the true turnout at the nine stations.

This revelation has prompted the task force to broaden its investigation to explore whether similar data manipulation occurred after the polls had closed.