Police Complete Investigation of June 1 Local Election Offenses... Over 1,600 Referred to Prosecution

Overall Crime Decrease Compared to the Previous Election

Seodaemun-gu, Seoul Police Agency building. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The police investigated over 4,000 election offenders related to the 8th local elections held on June 1 this year and referred more than 1,600 individuals to the prosecution.

On the 2nd, the National Police Agency announced that until the day before the statute of limitations expired for the June 1 local election offenses, they received 2,246 cases of election law violations, investigated 4,076 people, and referred 1,650 of them to the prosecution. Twenty-nine were sent under detention, while the remaining 2,426 were either not prosecuted or the investigations were closed. With this, all police investigations related to the June 1 local elections have been completed.

By type of crime, 'spreading false information' was the most common with 1,274 people (31.2%). This was followed by 'bribery' with 1,006 people (24.7%), banner and poster damage with 358 people (8.8%), distribution of printed materials with 203 people (5.0%), early election campaigning with 182 people (4.5%), and public officials' involvement in elections with 164 people (4.0%).

Compared to the 7th local elections held in June 2018, the total number of election crimes decreased. The total number of investigated individuals dropped from 5,187 to 4,076, a decrease of 1,111, and the number of detained individuals decreased by 3, from 32 to 29. A police official stated, "This year, with the presidential and local elections held consecutively, we organized 3,335 dedicated election crime investigation teams across 277 police stations nationwide starting from November 9 last year to ensure fair and swift investigations."

The police plan to strengthen crackdowns on violations of the 'Entrusted Election Act' in preparation for the local sports council chairman elections starting on the 15th and the nationwide simultaneous cooperative association elections scheduled for March next year. A police official said, "We ask the public for active reporting and tips regarding various illegal activities such as bribery, which frequently occur during entrusted election processes."