The number of voters in the June 3 local elections was corrected 72 times on election day alone, with certain regions seeing increases of over 6,000 voters, and these changes being made 12 hours after voting ended. The revelation on the 27th has sparked widespread allegations of "vote statistics manipulation" by the National Election Commission (NEC).

The Joint Investigation Headquarters of Prosecutors and Police (JIHP) conducted a search and seizure of the National Election Commission on the 23rd, securing these correction records and launching an investigation into allegations of "vote statistics manipulation." The JIHP is intensively investigating whether election commission employees intentionally manipulated voter turnout by distributing inputs, and it is known that voting manipulation signs have been detected in two locations in the Gyeonggi region including Gimpo and areas in the Chungcheong region.

According to materials released by Rep. Kim Eun-hye of the People Power Party, 56 out of 255 district and city election commissions nationwide submitted corrections for a total of 72 voter counts. The location with the most severe voter number fluctuation was Incheon's Gunsan-gu, where over 6,000 voters were added. Voter numbers also increased in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province and Goseong-gun, Gangwon Province, while an absurd case occurred in Danwon-gu, Ansan City, Gyeonggi Province, where 41 voters were recorded as 410 voters, a tenfold error. In Gyegok-myeon, Haenam-gun, South Jeolla Province, 84 voters were misrecorded as 284, clearly revealing the election commission's lax management of voting statistics.

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More serious is the opacity surrounding the timing and reasons for corrections. In Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, an error that occurred at 7 a.m. was corrected only at 7 p.m., a full 12 hours later, and in Jincheon-gun, North Chungcheong, voter numbers were changed after 7 p.m., the voting deadline. In Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, multiple corrections were made in a single electoral district, and the reasons for corrections were recorded vaguely as "correcting omissions" or "changing voter numbers" without specificity, revealing the election commission's poor management practices.

Should the "voter turnout distribution input manipulation" suspected by the JIHP prove to be true, public trust in election fairness and democracy is expected to suffer a fatal blow. Rep. Kim Eun-hye of the People Power Party strongly criticized the incident, stating, "The most fundamental and must-be-accurate voter turnout was grasped and corrected in an ad-hoc manner," and "It is difficult to easily gauge how far lax election management has spread. This is why a special investigation must proceed with no sacred cows and with high intensity." The JIHP's thorough investigation and whether a special counsel is appointed will likely be critical variables in determining the scale of repercussions from the June 3 local elections vote statistics manipulation allegations.