People Power Party Representative Jang Dong-hyeok enters the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 27th. July 27, 2026. [Photo=Yonhap News]

People Power Party Representative Jang Dong-hyeok has harshly criticized the National Election Commission (NEC), the Democratic Party of Korea, and the judiciary, labeling them "accomplices" in the infringement of voting rights during the June 3 local elections.

During the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 27th, Representative Jang stated, "The NEC, which refuses to live-broadcast proceedings; the Democratic Party, which is stalling the special prosecutor investigation; and the courts, which rejected warrants for internal messages, are all accomplices," adding that "the public will never forgive them."

Representative Jang was holding each entity accountable: the NEC for its refusal to open the election petition hearings to the public; the Democratic Party for delaying the appointment of a special prosecutor; and the court for rejecting search and seizure warrants for the internal messages and emails of NEC officials.

Representative Jang announced that he plans to personally attend the oral arguments for the election petition at the NEC later that afternoon, criticizing the commission by stating, "The NEC has ultimately refused our demand for a live broadcast of the proceedings."

He further argued that it is difficult to understand why the NEC would refuse to make the hearing process public, especially when, following the ballot paper shortage incident, circumstances have emerged suggesting that NEC staff arbitrarily adjusted the number of voters and turnout figures. He demanded that the NEC explain to the public what it is trying to hide.

Representative Jang also raised concerns regarding the reliability of the NEC's computer network. He argued that if staff were able to arbitrarily change the number of voters without following proper reporting and approval procedures, it is difficult to trust the security of the computer system that the NEC has long touted.

He urged a comprehensive verification of the entire election computer network, stating, "If electronic manipulation of the turnout is possible, then electronic manipulation of the vote count—or anything else—is also possible."

Following his focus on the issue of "election fraud" at a rally in Daegu on the 25th, Representative Jang stated on Facebook on the 26th, "They called it a conspiracy theory when we spoke of election fraud. It has been proven that such claims [that it was a conspiracy] were, in fact, the conspiracy theory."

He further wrote, "They insisted that electronic manipulation was impossible, yet it has been revealed that it is possible." Through the Daegu rally, his Facebook posts, and the Supreme Council meeting, he has consistently escalated his rhetoric, defining the NEC’s manipulation of data as "election fraud" and demanding a special prosecutor and a full-scale audit.

The joint investigation team of the prosecution and police has booked one staff member each from the NEC and the Gyeonggi Provincial Election Commission on charges of forging official electronic records and obstruction of public duty, and has conducted search and seizure operations at the NEC’s servers and offices. It is reported that circumstances involving the redistribution of excess voter counts to other polling stations in two locations in Gyeonggi and one in the Chungcheong region are also under investigation.

During the investigation, the joint team also uncovered evidence that NEC staff discussed so-called "number matching" schemes via internal messengers instead of reporting input errors to their superiors. The team reportedly first confirmed these circumstances through messenger records secured during the search and seizure of the NEC last June.

However, the court recently rejected the portion of the search and seizure warrant requested by the joint investigation team that pertained to NEC staff’s messenger and email records. While warrants for the servers and offices were granted, this has effectively hindered efforts to secure communication records necessary to clarify the chains of internal discussion, directives, and reporting.

Supreme Council member Kim Min-soo asked during the meeting, "They altered the turnout; are the vote counts safe?" He argued that if the number of voters was matched by adjusting figures from other polling stations rather than through proper correction procedures, then all other electronic data comprising the election results must be verified by cross-referencing original data with modification logs.

The core of this investigation is not merely the existence of simple input errors. It lies in uncovering who became aware of the errors after they occurred, whose decision it was to bypass proper reporting and approval procedures, and to what extent the method of adjusting figures across different polling stations was employed.

While it is too early to conclude whether the vote counts for individual candidates were manipulated, now that it has been confirmed that the number of voters—the foundation of election results—was arbitrarily adjusted, it has become difficult to avoid demands for a full-scale verification of original election network data, input/modification/deletion logs, access and authorization records, and the reporting/directive hierarchy between regional election commissions and the central NEC.