Special counsel raids NEC headquarters over alleged bid rigging

Investigators from a special counsel team raided the National Election Commission (NEC) headquarters in Gwacheon, South Korea, on November 4, 2023, over allegations of preferential treatment in selecting a ballot printer maker. The special counsel team, led by Lee Tae-han, mobilized 32 personnel, including two prosecutors, to search the NEC's headquarters and the office and factory of the company in question.

The investigation uncovered evidence suggesting that the election watchdog provided advance information on a bid to select a maker of early voting ballot issuing machines and revised its internal guidelines to require all local election commissions to purchase ink and other supplies from the chosen company. As a result, the company supplied around 17,000 ballot issuing machines to the commissions in a 32.1 billion-won (US$24 million) project, making it the largest commissioned by the NEC in the past five years.

The company also supplied 13.8 billion won worth of ink and other supplies to the commissions between December 2023 and July 2026. The special counsel team has been investigating various suspected irregularities involving the NEC since its launch in early September to look into what led to the unprecedented ballot shortages in June's nationwide local elections.

Brief written by urgent.news from Yonhap News's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.