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🇰🇷 South Korea /Elections & Politics

Election commission finds 3 more vote count errors, including one party incorrectly awarded 12 votes

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • The National Election Commission discovered three additional cases of incorrect vote count entries from the June 3 local elections.
  • In some instances, valid and invalid votes were swapped, while in others, a party receiving only one vote was recorded as having 12.
  • The commission attributed the errors to confusion in inputting vote counts for multiple parties, particularly in proportional representation elections.

The National Election Commission (NEC) has identified three more instances of erroneous vote count entries from the June 3 local elections, adding to previous revelations of tabulation errors. These new cases involve significant inaccuracies, including the misclassification of valid votes as invalid and the wildly inflated reporting of votes for certain parties.

In the election for city council members in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, a valid vote for a People Power Party candidate was mistakenly recorded as invalid, altering the reported vote count. Similarly, in Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, two independent candidates had their vote counts reduced by one each due to invalid votes being incorrectly entered as valid. These errors, though seemingly minor individually, point to systemic issues in the vote counting process.

Due to the large number of party input fields, there was confusion, leading to miscalculations.

— National Election CommissionThe commission explained the reason for the vote count input errors.

More striking are the errors in the proportional representation election for the Gyeonggi Provincial Council. In one polling station in Suwon, the Saemi-rae Democratic Party, which actually received only one vote, was recorded as having 12. Conversely, another party reported as receiving 7 votes actually received 12. Similar discrepancies were found in Ansan, where one party listed with 3 votes had received none, while another reported as receiving zero votes actually garnered 3.

The NEC attributed these "mass input errors" to confusion in the data entry process, particularly the extensive list of political parties in proportional representation elections. "Due to the large number of party input fields, there was confusion, leading to miscalculations," an NEC official explained. The commission stated it plans to rectify the system once appeals related to these elections are concluded, aiming to prevent future occurrences of such significant tabulation mistakes.

The system will be modified after the appeals for the relevant elections are concluded.

— National Election CommissionThe commission outlined its plan to address the errors.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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