(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with additional raid)
SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) -- Investigators raided the National Election Commission (NEC) headquarters Wednesday over allegations of preferential treatment in choosing a ballot printer maker and suspected tampering of official voting logs, a special counsel team said.
Thirty-two personnel, including two prosecutors, were mobilized to search a division of the NEC at its headquarters in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, and the office and factory of the manufacturer of early voting ballot-issuing machines, according to the team led by special counsel Lee Tae-han.
Separately, 44 personnel, including an assistant special counsel, were sent to search the NEC headquarters and the Seoul election commission following the discovery of falsified or altered voting logs from at least 40 polling stations set up for June's nationwide local elections, the team said.
In the first case, the team said it found evidence suggesting that the election watchdog gave preferential treatment to the company, whose identity was withheld, by providing it with advance information on a tender to select a manufacturer of ballot printers.
The NEC is also suspected of revising its internal guidelines to require all local election commissions to purchase ink and other supplies from the chosen company.
As a result, the company supplied around 17,000 ballot issuing machines to the commissions in a 32.1 billion-won (US$24 million) project, the biggest commissioned by the NEC in the past five years, according to the independent counsel team.
The company also supplied 13.8 billion won worth of ink and other supplies to the commissions between December 2023 and July 2026, it said.
In the second case, the NEC is suspected of having distributed ballots without serial numbers to around 140 polling stations on the day of the local elections and ordered district election commissions to arbitrarily write the ballots' serial numbers on voting logs, which keep records of how voting proceeded and how ballots were managed and distributed.
Of the 140, at least 40 polling stations produced falsified or altered voting logs, according to the independent counsel team.
Lee's team has been investigating various suspected irregularities involving the NEC after it was launched in early September to look mainly into what led to the unprecedented ballot shortages in June's nationwide local elections.
On Monday and Tuesday, the team searched the NEC over suspicions the election watchdog illegally paid commissioners monthly allowances.
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