In the election for Gyeonggi superintendent of education in the 9th nationwide local elections (June 3 local elections), the candidate-by-candidate vote counts were swapped at a polling station in Jungwon District, Seongnam, and 424 votes were undercounted in the final published results at a polling station in Gwangju. After correction, the vote gap between the two candidates shrank by 47, from 379,039 to 378,992.
Following confirmation in the North Jeolla superintendent election that the tally from a specific precinct was omitted and another precinct's results were double-counted, a ballot entry error has also surfaced in the Gyeonggi superintendent race, intensifying controversy over the National Election Commission's lax management.
The Gyeonggi Election Commission on the 11th issued a "public apology regarding mistaken entry of ballot count results," saying, "In connection with the Gyeonggi superintendent of education election, mistaken entries of tally results occurred during the counting process at the Seongnam Jungwon District Election Commission and the Gwangju City Election Commission," and added, "We offer our deepest apologies to voters."
According to the Gyeonggi Election Commission, at Geumgwang 2-dong Polling Station No. 3 in Jungwon District, Seongnam, the candidate-by-candidate vote counts were entered in reverse. Unlike other public office elections, the superintendent race has no candidate numbers, so the order on the ballot is determined by lot, and ballots are used in which the candidate order varies according to the order of basic district council constituencies.
That polling station used the Type B ballot with the candidate order "Ahn Min-seok–Yim Tae-hee." However, on the ballot reporting system input screen, candidates appeared in the default order "Yim Tae-hee–Ahn Min-seok." In the process, the two candidates' vote counts were entered in reverse.
The Geumgwang 2-dong Polling Station No. 3 tally was initially published as 337 votes for Yim Tae-hee and 368 for Ahn Min-seok. But the actual count was 368 for Yim and 337 for Ahn. In effect, the two candidates' vote counts were swapped by 31 each.
At Chogok-eup Polling Station No. 2 in Gwangju, another station's results were entered twice. During the Gwangju Election Commission's count, a counting clerk mistakenly entered Chogok-eup Polling Station No. 9 as No. 2, and later corrected No. 9's results. But the previously misentered No. 2 results were not fixed. As a result, Polling Station No. 9's tally was double-counted at No. 2.
The Chogok-eup Polling Station No. 2 tally in Gwangju was initially published as 668 votes for Yim Tae-hee and 582 for Ahn Min-seok. The actual count was 869 for Yim and 798 for Ahn. At this station, 201 votes for Yim, 216 votes for Ahn, and 7 invalid ballots were each undercounted. The discrepancy by number of ballots was 424.
Accordingly, the overall vote totals in the Gyeonggi superintendent election were corrected. The previously published totals were 3,178,132 votes for Yim Tae-hee and 3,557,171 for Ahn Min-seok. The actual count is 3,178,364 for Yim and 3,557,356 for Ahn. Yim gained 232 votes and Ahn 185 compared with the original publication. The vote gap between the two candidates shrank by 47, from 379,039 to 378,992.
The Gyeonggi Election Commission said it identified the errors while fully reviewing tally sheets from 47 committees based on the Public Official Election Act's Article 193, which governs correction of mistakes in determining winners. The Gwangju Election Commission's mistaken entry was confirmed on the 9th, and the Seongnam Jungwon District Election Commission's mistaken entry was confirmed on the 10th.
The Gyeonggi Election Commission explained that, after going through the Seongnam Jungwon District Election Commission, the Gwangju City Election Commission, and the Gyeonggi Election Commission Commissioners' meeting, it corrected the tally sheet and election record, which formally record the final results.
Earlier, in the North Jeolla superintendent election, it was confirmed that the tally from Jeonju's Junghwasan 1-dong Precinct No. 1 was not reflected in the final published results, while the tally from Precinct No. 3 in the same dong was reflected twice. The North Jeolla Election Commission is proceeding with correction procedures. In the North Jeolla superintendent race, the published vote gap between the two candidates was 19 votes larger than the actual gap.
Following the ballot shortage and now the consecutive revelations of tally entry errors in the North Jeolla and Gyeonggi superintendent elections, controversy over the Election Commission's poor election management is expected to grow.
A Gyeonggi Election Commission official said, "The lifeblood of election management is accuracy and trust," adding, "Although we have a duty to manage and publish accurate voting results, we are fully aware there is no excuse for failing to conduct thorough verification during data entry." The official added, "We will reexamine the voting and counting management system and prepare improvement measures to prevent such mistakes."