Special counsel raids election commission over alleged bid rigging
Investigators are also probing falsified voting logs at at least 40 polling stations used in June's nationwide local elections.
Investigators searched the headquarters of South Korea's National Election Commission on Wednesday over suspected favoritism in a ballot equipment contract, South Korea's national news agency Yonhap reported.
A team of 32 personnel, including two prosecutors, searched a division at the commission's Gwacheon headquarters, south of Seoul, along with the office and factory of a firm that makes machines for issuing early voting ballots, the special counsel team led by Lee Tae-han said.
In the first case, the team said it found evidence that the commission gave one company advance details of a tender for ballot printers, although it did not name the firm.
The commission is also suspected of changing its internal guidelines so that every local election commission had to buy ink and other supplies from that company.
The team said the firm supplied about 17,000 ballot-issuing machines under a 32.1 billion won project, worth $24 million, the largest order the commission has placed in five years.
Between December 2023 and July 2026, the company also provided supplies worth 13.8 billion won, the team said.
In a separate case, a 44-member team including an assistant special counsel searched the commission's headquarters and the Seoul election commission after finding falsified or altered voting logs at no fewer than 40 polling stations set up for June's local elections.
The team suspects that ballots without serial numbers were handed out at around 140 polling stations on election day, and that district commissions were told to fill in serial numbers on the logs themselves.
Voting logs record how the vote proceeded and how ballots were managed and distributed, which makes altered entries a central concern in the probe.
The investigation, which began in early September, focuses mainly on what caused the unprecedented ballot shortages during June's nationwide local elections.
On Monday and Tuesday, the team searched the commission over suspicions that it illegally paid commissioners monthly allowances.
