Regarding the mis-tabulation of the vote caused by erroneous entry of vote counts in the Gyeonggi superintendent race of the 6·3 local elections, Gyeonggi Superintendent Im Tae-hee said, “Disclose the relevant information and submit to verification.”

On the 12th, Superintendent Im held an emergency press conference at the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, and made these remarks.

He said, “This situation shakes the foundation of democratic suffrage,” adding, “This is a matter of defending the Constitution. President Lee Jae Myung should step in personally and handle it responsibly.” He then added, “Institutions responsible must answer with sincerity to the demands of citizens related to this incident.”

Im also stated that the election commission requested a visit for a meeting, but he refused. He said, “Meeting when only a very small part of the problem has surfaced is not appropriate, so I declined,” and, “If they cannot properly disclose basic information, not only this election but also past elections and those to come will inevitably have their legitimacy questioned. To safeguard democracy and the right of citizens to political participation, I will do my best until the truth is revealed.”

The Gyeonggi Election Commission posted a ‘public apology regarding mistaken entry of tally results’ on its website the previous day and disclosed that vote counts had been entered incorrectly. According to the commission, errors in entering vote counts occurred at two locations: the No. 3 polling station in Geumgwang 2-dong, Jungwon District, Seongnam, and the No. 2 polling station in Chowol-eup, Gwangju.

At the No. 3 polling station in Geumgwang 2-dong, the vote counts of Ahn Min-seok and Im Tae-hee, who were in a two-way race, were entered swapped. In the case of the No. 2 polling station in Chowol-eup, the tally results from a different polling station were entered.

Accordingly, the counts that had been wrongly entered and announced as 582 for candidate Ahn and 668 for candidate Im were corrected to 798 for candidate Ahn and 869 for candidate Im. The margin between the two candidates narrowed by 47 votes.