Police crack down on 4,191 election law violators in local vote

'Intensive investigation period' to run through Oct. 2

Voters cast their ballots at Polling Station No. 5 in Dogok 1-dong, set up inside the Maebongsan Indoor Badminton Hall in Seoul, on Wednesday, the day of the 9th nationwide simultaneous local elections. [Yonhap]
Voters cast their ballots at Polling Station No. 5 in Dogok 1-dong, set up inside the Maebongsan Indoor Badminton Hall in Seoul, on Wednesday, the day of the 9th nationwide simultaneous local elections. [Yonhap]

By Kim A-rin, The Herald Business

Police cracked down on 4,191 election law violators in connection with the June 3 local elections, with smear campaigns — including the spread of false information and fake news — accounting for the largest share of offenses at roughly one-third of the total.

The Korean National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters said Thursday that enforcement operations across 279 police agencies nationwide, from Feb. 3, when preliminary candidate registration opened, through Wednesday, election day, yielded 2,549 cases involving 4,191 suspects. Of those, 265 have been referred to prosecutors and 3,394 are under investigation. Eight suspects have been taken into detention.

By offense type, smear campaigns — including the publication of false information and the spread of fake news — were the most common, accounting for 1,365 suspects, or 32.5 percent of the total. Bribery followed with 1,050 suspects (25 percent), ahead of illegal early campaigning with 270 (6.4 percent), election-related assault with 210 (5 percent) and civil servant involvement in electioneering with 166 (3.9 percent).

Among smear campaign cases, 832 suspects used offline methods such as flyers and printed materials, while 533 relied on online channels including social media. Particularly notable were 51 suspects caught using deepfake content — AI-generated video — for campaign purposes. Video manipulation was the most common technique at 16 cases, followed by image manipulation at 15 cases and voice manipulation at one case.

Police also took a firm stance against violence during the campaign period, detaining six of the 210 election violence suspects on serious charges and referring three others to prosecutors without detention. The remaining 196 remain under investigation.

Among those detained was a suspect who repeatedly punched a district council preliminary candidate in the face at a bus stop on April 28. Another was arrested after throwing a 500-milliliter water bottle from the rooftop of a nearby building at a city council preliminary candidate campaigning outside a subway station on May 12.

More than half of all cases — 2,365 suspects, or 56.4 percent — originated from formal complaints or accusations. Reports and petitions accounted for 1,037 suspects (24.7 percent), followed by referrals from the National Election Commission at 412 (9.8 percent) and intelligence-based or self-initiated investigations at 377 (8.9 percent).

Police launched an intensive election case investigation period Thursday that will run through Oct. 2. "We will investigate all election cases swiftly and strictly, regardless of whether the candidate won or lost," a police agency official said. "We will do our utmost to ensure that local governments chosen by voters are built on a clean and sound foundation."


arin@heraldcorp.com