A citizen is casting a vote at an early voting station. [Photo=Yonhap News] 

A voter turnout manipulation chart re-disclosed by former lawmaker Min Kyung-wook after the National Election Commission (NEC) computer tampering was exposed. It can be seen that the early voting turnout curves for the separate presidential elections are almost perfectly identical, shifted by exactly one hour.

For years, whenever suspicions surrounding elections were raised, the National Election Commission (NEC) reflexively repeated one sentence:

“Computer tampering is structurally impossible.”

Before this single sentence, questioning was effectively blocked. Anyone who dared to raise doubts was immediately labeled a "conspiracy theorist." Those who questioned the election were relegated to the camp of the irrational, while those who did not were automatically positioned as the standard-bearers of reason and common sense. 

July 23, the False Melody Breaks

The media, backed by ‘experts,’ echoed that sentence, and the citizens believed in that repetition. Because it was comfortable to believe. That South Korea’s elections are fair, that one vote in Korea is counted as one vote, and that South Korean democracy is mature—

This was the lullaby we had been telling ourselves for decades. 

However, a lullaby always possesses a quality crueler than the truth. Even while asleep, the melody sounds as if it will never break. Until it does.

On July 23, 2026, that melody broke.

The joint investigation headquarters of the prosecution and police launched additional raids on the National Election Commission, the Gyeonggi-do Election Commission, and the election commissions of Seoul’s Songpa, Gangnam, and Seocho districts. What the joint investigation headquarters officially revealed that day was nothing short of shocking. 

According to reports, in the process of aggregating the number of voters on the day of the local election, some staff members arbitrarily modified computer statistics without going through the reporting and approval procedures of their superiors. In some cases, evidence was even uncovered of what is known as ‘number matching,’ where figures at other polling stations were also altered. 

And the truly important thing here was not the fact that the numbers were wrong itself. Human work is always prone to error. Some people might accidentally type ‘1’ instead of ‘4.’ Some might input numbers into the wrong column. These are everyday mishaps that anyone could laugh off. 

The problem was how those errors were handled. Under normal procedures, if the number of voters is entered incorrectly, the reason should be documented specifically, and corrections should be made after reporting to and receiving approval from superiors. Minimal bureaucratic common sense requires this. 

However, the circumstances uncovered by the investigative authorities were the exact opposite. Some staff members engaged in conversations about how to arbitrarily adjust the figures without reporting the input errors, and were even suspected of using a ‘distribute-recover’ method, where erroneous figures from one polling station were dispersed into several nearby polling stations, and then the discrepancy was slowly reduced as actual voters increased over time. 

At this point, it is no longer a ‘correction of errors.’ It is a modification premised on concealment, and manipulation disguised as procedure. And to peel off that mask, the joint investigation headquarters needed a warrant. Without the warrant, we would have remembered it forever as just “an instance of a typo that was fixed.”

One day later, on July 24, the incident descended into a deeper abyss. 

According to reports, the joint investigation headquarters moved beyond the previously suspected regions—parts of Gyeonggi-do and Seoul’s Gangnam, Songpa, and Seocho—to uncover similar circumstances in other parts of Gyeonggi and the Chungcheong region.

As the scale of the incident grew, another scene came to light. A remark made by a staff member identified as a suspect at the scene of the raid: “Isn't it enough as long as the final turnout matches?” This single sentence encapsulates the collapse of election administration.

Everything was contained within that one sentence. An election is not a game where only the final number needs to match. The process must be truthful for the result to be truthful. Records must be honest for statistics to hold public authority. The fact that every single vote is a person's footprint—the fact that it is genuine—is the very meaning of voting. 

But if the staff on the ground were operating under the perception that “as long as the final number matches,” then democracy was already in grave danger. 

‘Less Exposed,’ Not ‘Less Occurred’

On July 27, the released data gave the public an even greater shock. There were a total of 72 cases of correction reports regarding the number of voters received by the National Election Commission from 56 local election commissions across the country on the day of the local election. 

Considering that there are 255 local election commissions nationwide, this number might seem small. However, that is only because it was ‘less exposed,’ not because it ‘occurred less.’ Even more serious is the nature of the corrections.

The reasons for the corrections varied, from ‘omission of entry’ to ‘change in voter count,’ and in some places, the figures increased by the thousands. In some places, the corrections were made almost half a day later. 

According to reports, in Gyeyang-gu, Incheon, the number changed from 54,665 to 61,276, and in Sacheon, Gyeongnam, from 15,634 to 19,631. Cases were reported where Polling Station No. 1 in Baegun-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, corrected an entry error of 41 to 410, and Geyok-myeon in Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do, corrected 84 to 284. 

If it were one or two cases, it could be a mishap. If it were four or five, one could claim it’s a coincidence. But when such records begin to accumulate on a national scale, one person's suspicion becomes the suspicion of a hundred, and a hundred people's suspicion spreads to the entire nation.

Kim Young-hwan, Na Kyung-won, Kim Moon-soo, Jang Dong-hyeok… “There is Election Fraud”

Riding this wave, responses from the political sphere poured in. Kim Young-hwan, former Governor of North Chungcheong Province, expressed deep remorse upon learning that the possibility of computer tampering had emerged as an official investigative finding.

“Today is the day that the term ‘election fraud conspiracy theory’ has disappeared from our country. I never imagined that this country’s election commission could be so rotten. I bow my head and apologize to the young people and the citizens who persistently insisted on election fraud, for my past thinking and judgment in keeping my distance from them under the belief that there was no definitive evidence yet.”

Former Minister Kim Moon-soo, who had earned the nickname ‘Kim Concession’ for accepting defeat too quickly despite election fraud controversies while running as a presidential candidate in 2025, also raised his voice.

“How can you carry the ‘National Election Commission’ sign when you make so many mistakes in addition that even an elementary school student could handle? I hope that the People Power Party will appoint a ‘Special Prosecutor for Election Fraud’ to uncover all suspicions not only regarding this year’s local elections but also the ‘2025 Presidential Election’ where I was a candidate.”

For a former presidential candidate to publicly question his own election result is a rare, bombshell-level statement in the history of Korean politics.

Rep. Na Kyung-won also raised her voice during the pleadings for the June 3 local election petition to the NEC.

“Evidence of server turnout manipulation has recently been revealed to the world. If turnout manipulation is already this easy, who can believe that the vote counts weren't touched? The NEC must immediately pave the way for a re-election and return the voting rights stolen from the people.”

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok also sharply attacked the election fraud cartel on the 27th.

“From a shortage of ballot papers to computer tampering, it has all been revealed. I plan to give an oral argument myself at the central election commission’s hearing on the election petition this afternoon. The NEC ended up refusing the request for a live broadcast. It is difficult to understand what they are trying to hide by refusing the live broadcast. 

The NEC that refuses live broadcasting, the Democratic Party that delays a national special prosecutor, and the court that rejects search and seizure warrants for messengers—the key evidence—are all accomplices. The people are enraged at these accomplices, and the people will never forgive them.”

Beyond Turnout Manipulation, Designing the Turnout

The most shocking content was the turnout manipulation chart re-disclosed by former lawmaker Min Kyung-wook, who survived death after collapsing during a lecture due to a cerebral hemorrhage, following the revelation of the NEC computer tampering.

This is a chart I am very familiar with, as I have analyzed it using AI multiple times while incorporating his claims from YouTube into my book, *“Fraudulent Elections: A Lost Country.”*

What that chart showed made all the shocking reports in the media so far look like child's play. The chart went beyond turnout manipulation and nakedly revealed the ‘blueprint for turnout.’

There are two curves drawn on the chart. The early voting turnout by time of day for the 20th Presidential Election in 2022, when President Yoon Suk-yeol was elected, and the early voting turnout by time of day for the 21st Presidential Election in 2025, when President Lee Jae-myung was elected. 

The single fact that stunned experts was that “the two curves are almost perfectly identical, shifted by exactly one hour.” In other words, despite being separate presidential elections, the early voting turnouts overlapped three years later in a form shifted by exactly one hour.

For instance, the ‘20th Presidential Election early voting turnout’ at 8 AM on the first day is identical to the ‘21st Presidential Election early voting turnout’ at 7 AM on the first day.

And the next time slot, and the one after that, all the way to the end, they are identical with a one-hour difference. The demographic composition was different. The political situation was different. During the 20th Presidential Election, there was even the massive variable of COVID-19. Yet, three years later, in the same country, the same number of people voted in the same pattern, shifted by exactly one hour? 

This is beyond the realm of statistics. No statistical model in the world, no sociological model, and no behavioral economics model can explain such a phenomenon. Noise always infiltrates human free action. There is wavering in the trajectories of birds in flight, and ripples in the flow of a river.

Early voting is also the ‘sum of free actions.’ Yet, two sets of free actions, separated by three years, match without a tiny bit of error. That is not nature. That is a printout.

I asked ChatGPT directly. I asked, ‘Can this happen?’ Even ChatGPT, famous for avoiding definitive answers, gave the following response:

“It can absolutely not happen.”

ChatGPT explained the reason as follows:

△ Since early voting is the sum of ‘free actions,’ such a repetitive pattern can never emerge.

△ Because ‘noise’ always infiltrates human behavior, a 99% match is impossible.

△ A 99.9% match is impossible to explain by anything other than ‘copy-paste.’

AI, statisticians, sociologists, and behavioral scientists would all give the same answer. Because there is only one fact. The fact that the same shape was ‘output’ means that the same shape was ‘input.’

And this is why the above two turnout analyses are truly important. The computer tampering revealed through the joint investigation headquarters was, in fact, merely the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ It was not the end, but only the beginning. The real picture was behind it.

In the inner workings pointed to by reports and circumstances, the NEC and the election fraud cartel, regardless of the number of voters, the actual number of voters, or local conditions, had already ‘set’ the early voting turnout and designed the system so that such turnout would emerge.

Drawing the turnout first, and fitting the vote share into it. Laying the fuse first, and then striking the spark. Of course, manipulating the system to favor a certain political party within that pre-set framework was the natural next step in the procedure.

This is the real truth that the election fraud cartel so desperately wants to hide. And that is also why they feel such a great threat whenever that truth is exposed, even slightly.

Because they know well that the day early voting disappears, their victory formula will disappear with it. That is why they defend early voting until the end.

Ultimately, we reach one conclusion here. While early voting appears to be conducted by the people, within the inner depths that the circumstances point to, the NEC and the election fraud cartel were creating results through various manipulation methods. 

The meaning is clear. South Koreans went to the polling stations. They stood in line. They stamped their ballots. And they returned, believing they had exercised their right to vote. But whether that belief was real can no longer be guaranteed by the voters themselves. 

Whether their one vote was counted as one, whittled down to 0.5, or reborn under a different name in someone else's hands—the path for citizens to verify this is closed. This is the darkest point that South Korean democracy has reached in the 21st century. 

It is not that the weight of one vote has vanished, but that the very existence of one vote has been shaken. The premise that the citizen was the subject of the act of voting, the promise that the citizen was the final decision-maker, and the declaration that the citizen is the owner of this country have lost their power.

The turnout manipulation incident is now asking us: At what time did we go to the early voting station in the last election? And did the single vote we cast then safely reach the counting station as it was?

◆ Author Daniel Park

“This book was not written to attack a specific political party or figure. Rather than standing on the side of an ideology, I wanted to stand on the side of facts. Is it really the president and the National Assembly that we elected?” -From the author’s note