People Power Party lawmaker Ju Jin-woo holds a press conference at the National Assembly's media center to announce the introduction of three bills aimed at restricting the National Election Commission's use of discretionary contracts, on July 20. [Yonhap]
People Power Party lawmaker Ju Jin-woo holds a press conference at the National Assembly's media center to announce the introduction of three bills aimed at restricting the National Election Commission's use of discretionary contracts, on July 20. [Yonhap]

People Power Party lawmaker Ju Jin-woo said evidence has emerged that hourly voter counts were falsely entered at 109 precincts nationwide during the last presidential election.

Ju held a press conference at the National Assembly on Sunday, saying the National Election Commission "deliberately manipulated voter turnout" during the 21st presidential election. He said three polling stations in Hongeun2-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, "fabricated and falsely entered voter counts in arbitrary increments of 100 every hour."

According to Ju, the figures showed 100 voters recorded at 7 a.m., 100 at 8 a.m., 100 at 9 a.m., 200 at 10 a.m., 100 at 11 a.m., 200 at noon and 200 at 1 p.m. — with counts rising in multiples of 100 for 11 consecutive hours.

He said a similar pattern was found in Uichang-gu, Changwon, where voter counts increased by exactly 100 every hour for five consecutive hours from 7 a.m. to noon. He added that a total of five precincts recorded fraudulent entries in such 100-unit increments.

Ju also said 90 precincts recorded no increase in voter count for extended periods. He cited one precinct in Namchon, Osan, Gyeonggi Province, where 259 voters were recorded in one hour, followed by zero additions over the next three hours.

He added that 14 precincts recorded increases of only one or two voters over two or more consecutive hours. At one precinct in Segok-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 292 voters were recorded in a single hour, after which only two votes were logged over the following two hours, he said.

"A total of 109 precincts have been found to have deliberately manipulated voter counts in the last presidential election," Ju said, calling the pattern of falsely entering voter data into servers — spanning both the recent local elections and the previous presidential election — "an organized and habitual criminal act."

He also said the National Election Commission-led ballot recount at Olympic Park amounted to "destruction of evidence," and called on the joint police-prosecution investigative team to secure as much evidence as possible through swift compulsory measures before a special prosecutor is launched. He also urged courts not to reject warrants in a way that shields insiders.

Speaking to reporters after the press conference, Ju proposed a counter-offer to the Democratic Party, saying the two parties should jointly verify the election commission's computer servers before proceeding with any ballot recount at Olympic Park. "The proper sequence is to first verify the parts where data was deliberately entered falsely, going back to the last presidential election and the general election," he said.


woo@heraldcorp.com