Election Commission Admits Error in Vote Count Two Months After Election

Recognizing the Suwonjeong error two months later… Apologies to candidates, but neglect of false figures on homepage

(Suwon = Yonhap News) Reporter Choi Jong-ho = While the immaturity of the National Election Commission was clearly revealed through the 9th National Simultaneous Local Elections, including a lack of ballot papers and an error in entering the number of votes, it was belatedly revealed that the National Election Commission had made mistakes during the vote counting process in past elections.

According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Election Commission on the 11th, in the 22nd general election of the National Assembly held in 2024, over 2,000 valid votes in the Suwon municipal constituency were incorrectly entered as invalid votes and then announced.

In the process of dividing the invalid votes and valid votes by putting them into the ballot sorting machine, the invalid votes were counted as 4,696, and after re-verification, the invalid votes were corrected to 2,455, but the invalid votes were entered into the ballot counting system before re-confirmation.

Through re-confirmation, 2,241 votes were recognized as valid, but they were not reflected in the vote counting results.

At the time, Kim Jun-hyuk of the Democratic Party of Korea and Lee Su-jeong of the People Power Party were running in this constituency. Among the valid votes that were incorrectly processed as invalid votes, 1,089 votes supported candidate Kim and 1,152 votes supported candidate Lee.

In the election, Candidate Kim received 70,970 votes and Candidate Lee received 68,656 votes, so even if the incorrectly entered vote count results were corrected, the results would not be affected, but it became known, albeit belatedly, that the National Election Commission's election work practices were continued from the past.

In particular, it was found that the National Election Commission at the time confirmed the error in vote counting input only two months after the election, notified the parties involved, Candidate Kim and Candidate Lee, and apologized.

Moreover, incorrectly entered ballot counting results remain uncorrected in the previous election ballot counting status on the National Election Commission website.

An official from the National Election Commission said, "We were aware of the incorrect vote counting results and explained them to the candidates in an official document or met them in person. I understand that the person in charge was disciplined."

Meanwhile, in this local election, an unprecedented situation occurred where voting was stopped due to a lack of ballot papers, and in the Gyeonggi-do and Jeonbuk-do superintendent of education elections, the voting results were announced with an incorrect number of votes due to an error in entering the number of votes, and then corrected.