National Election Commission debunks allegations of electoral fraud

The National Election Commission (NEC) debunked allegations of electoral fraud on Sunday after CCTV footage catching what seemed to be people tampering with ballot boxes started circulating.

A screen capture image which stirred up allegations that the National Election Commission officials in Eunpyeong District manipulated the electoral votes. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The National Election Commission (NEC) debunked allegations of electoral fraud on Sunday after CCTV footage catching what seemed to be people tampering with ballot boxes started circulating.

On Sunday, surveillance camera footage showing several people putting ballot envelopes in early voting ballot boxes sparked allegations that NEC staffers attempted to rig the April 10 general election.

Viewers who saw the YouTube clip raised accusations that NEC employees at Eunpyeong District’s election commission broke into stored ballot boxes and illegally inserted envelopes after early voting took place over Friday and Saturday.

The commission stated that the accusation was “untrue,” explaining that the footage showed a due process where officials added early voters' ballots to their designated districts.

The nationwide early voting for the April 10 general election invited the country’s eligible voters to cast their ballots at any polling station regardless of their legal addresses. Early votes cast outside one’s electoral district were later sent to their designated electoral district's election commission to be counted in their representative ballot box.

The commission explained that the footage recorded officials moving Eunpyeong District residents' early votes to their designated ballot box.

“Eunpyeong District’s commission received some 19,000 envelopes with early voters' ballots [sent from polling stations outside of Eunpyeong] at 5 p.m. Saturday and completed the administrative procedure of registering those ballots at 1:50 a.m. on Sunday,” the NEC said. “Those properly registered envelopes were then put into the boxes [storing Eunpyeong District's voters ballots] between 2:34 a.m. and 3:45 a.m. on Sunday.”

An official monitors real-time surveillance camera footage showing how early voters' ballots are stored on Sunday at a situation room at the National Election Commission at Gwacheon Government Complex in Gyeonggi. [NEWS1]

The authority said that each district, city and provincial commission all double check the quantities of ballot-containing envelopes that arrive at the regional commission and register them only after they are confirmed that they were cast by eligible voters.

After registering votes, officials from the commission put the envelopes into the ballot box containing each electoral district’s votes and sealed the box. Doors of the storage site are locked.

Early votes are managed in a "[politically] fair and neutral" environment, the NEC stated.

“Two figures — each recommended by the conservative People Power Party (PPP) and the liberal Democratic Party (DP) — supervised the whole procedure of receiving, registering and putting early voters’ ballots into storage boxes,” the NEC added.

The handling and storage of early votes are "disclosed transparently and publicly," according to the commission.

“It is hard to understand the grounds of such allegations because the surveillance camera monitors and airs how those early voters’ ballots are being stored around the clock in real-time."

The commission said such “suspicion without fact-checking” is a “toxic behavior inciting the public and spreading distrust about the election [and its authorities].” It said that accusing the commission of election manipulation should “stop immediately.”

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]