‘False responses to opinion polls pretending to be constituents’… Jeonbuk Police, 167 people sent

The Jeonbuk Police Agency announced on the 5th that it had sent 167 people who participated in the manipulation of public opinion polls during this year's June 3 local elections without detention on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act.

Mr. A, who lives in Jeonju, is accused of interfering with the public opinion polls by responding to the polls as if they were residents of the district, even though he was not, by changing his mobile phone billing address to Imsil-gun.

Suspicions of poll manipulation arose when the response rate to public opinion polls, which was usually around 10%, soared to 40-50% in a survey conducted by another company around the same time.

After receiving the complaint, the police selected 8 out of 14 regions in the province as the primary investigation target through search and seizure of mobile carriers, and then expanded the investigation to 2 regions with many false responses.

A police official said, “A total of 167 people have been sent, including 34 instigators who instructed relatives or acquaintances to give false responses and 133 simple participants who gave false responses after receiving instructions.”