Allegations have surfaced that the official tally by the National Election Commission (NEC) for the first day of early voting in the June 3rd local elections and National Assembly by-elections was inflated by nearly 10% compared to the actual number of participants.

According to a whistleblower, on the first day of early voting on May 29th, an observer at the Geumbeo 2-dong polling station in Suseong-gu, Daegu, manually counted a total of 359 in-district early votes throughout the morning and afternoon. However, the NEC's official announcement stated the number was 393.

This indicates that the NEC's announcement was 34 more votes, or 9.5% higher, than the number directly counted by the observer.

The observer stated that the discrepancy reached over 25% at its peak between 9 AM and 11 AM.

Furthermore, the observer's side argued that it is unlikely for such a significant error of 34 votes to occur, even with minor inaccuracies possible from one or two individuals meticulously filling out counting sheets by hand for six hours, and officially raised the issue.

Consequently, the observer announced that they have submitted a letter of objection to the NEC.

The controversy over inflated early vote counts is not a new issue.

Prior to this, during the 21st National Assembly election on April 15th, six years ago, widespread allegations arose that someone intentionally manipulated the vote results through computer tampering.

Those who believe in election fraud have consistently raised suspicions that votes are inflated through computer manipulation of actual early voting results to alter election outcomes. They consider the possibility of such computer tampering to have been confirmed by government agencies for the first time through the National Intelligence Service's joint security inspection results in October 2023.

The possibility of computer manipulation was also pointed out in statistics directly released by the Central Election Commission. The NEC had previously published statistics indicating that 18,210 people participated in in-district early voting in the Shin-jung-dong constituency in Bucheon City, Gyeonggi Province.

In 2020, early voting took place from 6 AM to 6 PM on April 10th and 11th. For 18,210 people to have voted over two days, 12 hours each, totaling 24 hours, it would require one person to vote every 4.76 seconds.

Given the social distancing measures implemented due to COVID-19 at the time, which required voters to maintain distance, this number was deemed impossible.

Despite photos circulating online showing the Shin-jung-dong early voting station to be relatively uncrowded around 9:10 AM on the day of voting, leading to a flood of accusations of computer manipulation, the NEC failed to provide a clear explanation based on CCTV footage for the "inflated voter count" allegations. In some instances, cameras were even found to be obstructed.