Former South Korean Prime Minister Alleges CCP Behind Korean Election Fraud

A South Korean man casts a ballot during early voting at a polling station in Seoul on April 10, 2020, ahead of next week's parliamentary elections. Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images

Controversy surrounds the recent South Korean elections after former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn alleged that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and North Korea were behind election fraud and demanded that the Yoon Seok-yul government conduct an investigation.

On April 10, South Korea held the 22nd National Assembly elections. The largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Korea (DP), again won an overwhelming victory, securing 175 seats. Together with other leftist forces and the seats of the New Reform Party, formed by ex-members of the People Power Party, it formed a “super-sized opposition camp against the Yoon Suk-yeol government” with a total of 192 seats.

The ruling party, the People Power Party, only managed to secure 108 seats. This is the first time since the introduction of a direct presidential election in 1987 that the ruling party has lost to the opposition party by such a wide margin. The People Power Party barely held onto the bottom line of preventing the president’s impeachment and constitutional amendments (100 seats).

Former Prime Minister: Election Fraud Abounds

Mr. Hwang, the prime minister during Park Geun-hye’s presidency and acting president after Ms. Park’s impeachment, raised concerns about electoral fraud within South Korea’s election department, the National Election Commission (NEC). This included allegations of pre-election vote rigging and electoral fraud.

Mr. Hwang established in early 2022 the civilian group “EJA·Election Justice Army,” which includes an election reporting center and a legal support team. The group provides services such as voter education and observation training and aims to become a nationwide platform for preventing electoral fraud activities.

Since the conclusion of the 22nd National Assembly elections on April 10, Mr. Hwang has alleged electoral fraud and believes the shadow of the CCP and North Korea are behind it.

At a rally in front of the Blue House on April 27, Mr. Hwang said that South Korea is now embroiled in election fraud and stands at a crossroads of whether to move towards socialism.

Cho Kuk, former Minister of Justice during Moon Jae-in’s presidency, admitted in a parliamentary hearing in 2019 that he was a socialist. Despite this, he was still appointed as Minister of Justice by Mr. Moon. Mr. Cho was elected in the April parliamentary election, and his new party, the Rebuilding Korea Party, which he founded two months before the election, won 12 seats.

On April 26, Mr. Hwang posted on his Facebook with the title “North Korea and China are behind the NEC. Let’s urge [the government] to investigate,” claiming that the NEC is the source of pre-election vote rigging.

He introduced four figures from the Democratic Party of Korea, including Go Han-seok, a former vice president of the Party’s Institute for Democracy who spied for North Korea, current Democratic Party member Kim Min-seok, former president of the Institute for Democracy Yang Jeong-cheol, and former permanent member of the NEC Jo Hae-joo.

According to Mr. Hwang’s post, Mr. Go, once detained by South Korean prosecutors as a North Korean spy, has a deep understanding of North Korea and China. He even published books on big data and U.S. elections. After his release, Mr. Go studied at Harvard Kennedy School and worked as the “SK China IT and Internet Business Development Manager” in Beijing for four years before returning to South Korea to become the vice president of the Democratic Party’s Institute for Democracy. Kim Min-seok, then president of the Institute, is also a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School.

South Korean acting leader and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, center, arrives to hold a press conference at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea on March 10, 2017. Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo

In this parliamentary election, Yang Jeong-cheol, the close associate of former President Moon Jae-in and the Democratic Party’s chief planner in the last (21st) parliamentary election, was elected. A few months before the last parliamentary election, Yang Jeong-cheol visited China to sign a policy agreement with the Central Party School of the CCP. Both Mr. Yang and Mr. Go worked at the Institute for Democracy, according to the Facebook post.

Additionally, Mr. Hwang stated that Jo Hae-joo, a former permanent member of the NEC who had worked for the Moon campaign, introduced electronic vote-counting machines into South Korean elections.

Mr. Hwang questioned, “Why did Jo Hae-joo conduct research with Go Han-seok, who is suspected of being a [North Korean] spy and violating the National Security Act?”

Mr. Hwang said that one can perceive the shadows of North Korea and the CCP behind all these things.

He further alleged on Facebook that the pre-election voting on April 10 was fraudulent.

“I am convinced that the fraudsters are proficient in election practices and have cleverly linked data processing and big data. There has been extremely secretive intervention from external manpower to change and supplement the votes,” he said. “With such a huge behind-the-scenes force involved, it would not be networking on the NEC alone.”

“There may be a fifth element [hidden enemy spies within the opponent’s ranks] operating clandestinely within the ruling party and government,” he said.

In another Facebook post on April 10, Mr. Hwang cited the CCP’s intervention in Canadian parliamentary elections and believes that Beijing would also interfere in South Korean parliamentary elections.

He mentioned a recent article by The Washington Post titled “How China allegedly interfered with Canada’s elections,“ saying, ”For Chinese security, is Canada or South Korea more important?” which suggested that for the CCP’s regional security, South Korea’s strategic position is more important than Canada’s.

“In Canada, the CCP has intervened twice in parliamentary elections alone. Wouldn’t it influence our parliamentary elections?” he asked.

Scientist: Vote Fraud Violates Statistical Axioms

South Korea’s election voting includes on-site voting and pre-election voting. Pre-election voting includes on-site voting within the jurisdiction and out-of-jurisdiction voting.

Hur Byung-ki, an engineering Ph.D. who was involved in South Korea’s earliest missile development, said that according to statistical axioms, the voting rates of the ruling People Power Party and the largest opposition Democratic Party in both on-site voting and pre-election voting within the jurisdiction should be similar. However, the numbers released by the NEC contradict statistical axioms.

He explained that according to the data released by the NEC, in Seoul alone, there are a total of 425 “dong” (administrative divisions of South Korea). The on-site voting rate of the Democratic Party in all of these dongs is more than 10 percent lower than its pre-election voting rate within the jurisdiction, while the on-site voting rate of the People Power Party is more than 10 percent higher than its pre-election voting rate within the jurisdiction.

The situation in Seoul is common in most areas of South Korea. “This greatly violates the statistical axiom and cannot naturally occur unless falsified,” he told The Epoch Times on April 25.

Lawyer: Discovery of Huawei WiFi Signals

Park Joo-hyun, a lawyer and cyber terrorism expert of the South Korean Police, stated on Facebook on April 7 that he captured Huawei’s WiFi signal for the first time as a member of the Election Fraud Prevention Team during a special inspection of the Seoul Metropolitan Election Commission that day.

A pedestrian talks on the phone while walking past a Huawei Technologies Co. store in Beijing, China, on Jan. 29, 2019. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

In addition, during the vote counting, the number of votes should have increased until the end. In this vote-counting process, however, decreasing vote numbers appeared.

According to the voting information published by the NEC on April 10, the number of votes that day was 14,367,809 at 5:40 p.m., but decreased to 6,273,801 at 6:25 p.m. and then increased again to 14,641,031 at 6:52 p.m.

The number of votes for pre-election voting was 14,017,445 at 5:40 p.m., but decreased to 5,983,305 at 6:25 p.m. and then increased again to 13,208,710 at 6:52 p.m.

On Facebook, Mr. Hwang stated that after the election on April 10, he received bulk reporting from vote-counting supervisors.

He believes that the pre-election voting system and devices were designed for electoral fraud, noting that pre-election and on-site voting systems are different.

The number of early votes cast cannot be verified visually other than by the ballots inside the ballot box. In contrast, on the day of the election, methods for verification include signatures in the voter registry and a log of ballot serial numbers.

Mr. Hwang said that on election day, plastic bins are directly used as ballot boxes, whereas for early voting, ballot boxes are made of cloth bags, though they cannot stand upright on their own, so they’re placed in plastic bins are used as support, so it appears that all ballot boxes are the same, but the cloth bags are easily opened.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks during the 104th Independence Movement Day ceremony in Seoul on March 1, 2023. Jung Yeon-Jel/Getty Images

Furthermore, surveillance cameras at early voting sites were obstructed, and the serial numbers underneath the barcode on the early voting ballots were all destroyed.

Mr. Hwang noted that South Korea’s Public Official Election Act requires early voting officials to use personal seals, a requirement put forward by the ruling party and the government to the NEC. Yet, the NEC completely resisted and used its own printed seals instead.

“This is no different than leaving a backdoor open for arbitrary tampering with early voting ballots,” he said. “How can one not find it suspicious that the early voting system and devices are designed to conveniently hide the number of early votes and facilitate the insertion of fraudulent ballots?”

Intelligence Agency: NEC Riddled With Loopholes

The NEC of South Korea is an independent constitutional body responsible for managing elections and national referendums. It operates separately from the parliament, administrative departments, courts, and the constitutional court. However, the operation of the NEC is plagued with numerous issues.

According to a 2023 investigation by the South Korean National Human Rights Commission, the NEC completely avoided personnel inspections for seven years, neglected its own monitoring, and lacked external control, resulting in repeated instances of unfair recruitment. Out of a total of 162 recruitments, 104 did not adhere to fair recruitment procedures, accounting for 64 percent.

In 2023, the country’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), in collaboration with the Korea Internet & Security Agency and the NEC, conducted a security inspection of the election system. The results showed that the NEC’s voting and counting management systems had network security vulnerabilities, making them susceptible to attacks by foreign forces.

Over the past two years, the NIS has notified the NEC of seven hacked emails and malicious code infection attacks from North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau and advised the commission to undergo security checks. Despite the warnings, the NEC refused, citing its status as an independent constitutional body.