Citizens spontaneously gathered at the entrance of Jamsil Olympic Park Station Handball Stadium. ⒸHanmi Ilbo

In the provincial/metropolitan mayoral elections during the last June 3 local elections, there were 869 cases nationwide of so-called ‘twin vote counts’ where two candidates from different counting units simultaneously recorded the same number of votes. There were also 15 cases of ‘triplet vote counts’ where three or more candidates had identical vote totals.

As a result of a comprehensive survey of data by counting unit from the National Election Commission and an analysis of the vote status for provincial/metropolitan mayoral elections nationwide, a total of 869 cases of twin vote counts were identified within the same province or city. Twin vote counts tended to be concentrated particularly in areas with five candidates.

Gyeonggi Province ranked first with a total of 295 cases. This was followed by △Seoul (221 cases) △Jeonnam (210 cases) △Jeonbuk (117 cases) △Gwangju and Daegu (2 cases each) △Busan, Incheon, Gyeongnam, and Gyeongbuk (1 case each).

Narrowing the scope of comparison, a total of 69 twin vote count cases were identified within the same district, city, or county. Seoul had the most with 17 cases, followed by Jeonnam with 15 cases, Gyeonggi with 13 cases, and Jeonbuk with 12 cases.

Cases of ‘triplet vote counts’ where three candidates' vote totals simultaneously matched amounted to 15 (Jeonnam 7 cases, Gyeonggi 6 cases, Seoul 2 cases). 

Major twin vote count cases were found in the in-constituency advance voting of Songpa 1-dong and Songpa 2-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, where Oh Se-hoon (1158 votes) from the People Power Party and Yoo Ji-hye (23 votes) from the Women's Party each received the same number of votes in both dongs.

In the in-constituency advance voting of Baekhyeon-dong, Bundang-dong, and Jeongja 2-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi Province, the vote counts for Hong Seong-gyu (15 votes) from the Progressive Party and Kim Hyeon-wook (7 votes) an independent candidate, matched simultaneously in all three locations.

Furthermore, 14 cases (Gyeonggi 8 cases, Seoul 5 cases, Incheon 1 case) of twin vote counts involving candidates who received over 1,000 votes were found nationwide, causing a shock. 

In particular, in ‘Songdo 1-dong and 2-dong, Incheon,’ it was confirmed that candidate Park Chan-dae received 3,030 votes in each, and candidate Yoo Jeong-bok received 1,440 votes in each, identically. 

Reporter Lim Yo-hee