Special counsel raids NEC headquarters over alleged bid rigging

SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) -- Investigators raided the National Election Commission (NEC) headquarters Wednesday over allegations of preferential treatment in choosing a ballot printer maker, a special counsel team said.

Thirty-two personnel, including two prosecutors, were mobilized to search a division of the NEC at its headquarters in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, and the office and factory of the company in question, according to the team led by special counsel Lee Tae-han.

The team said it found evidence suggesting the election watchdog gave preferential treatment to the unnamed company by providing advance information on a bid to select a maker of early voting ballot issuing machines.

The NEC is also suspected of revising its internal guidelines to require all local election commissions to purchase ink and other supplies from the chosen company.

As a result, the company supplied around 17,000 ballot issuing machines to the commissions in a 32.1 billion-won (US$24 million) project, the biggest commissioned by the NEC in the past five years, according to the independent counsel team.

The company also supplied 13.8 billion won worth of ink and other supplies to the commissions between December 2023 and July 2026, it said.

Lee's team has been investigating various suspected irregularities involving the NEC after it was launched in early September to look mainly into what led to the unprecedented ballot shortages in June's nationwide local elections.

On Monday and Tuesday, the team searched the NEC over suspicions the election watchdog illegally paid commissioners monthly allowances.