Central Election Commission: "Yoon's Allegations of Election Fraud Are Self-Denial"

"Election Fraud, Practically an Impossible Scenario"
"Martial Law Troops' Unauthorized Occupation of the Election Commission is Unconstitutional and Illegal"

The National Election Commission (NEC) on the 12th pointed out that President Yoon Suk-yeol's raising of allegations of election fraud in his address to the nation is "nothing less than a denial of the election management system through which he was elected president."

Yonhap News

In a press release issued that day, the NEC stated, "Claims of election fraud raised multiple times during the election process have all been found baseless through judicial rulings." It added, "President Yoon announced in his address that he instructed the Minister of National Defense to inspect the NEC's computerized system to verify the allegations of election fraud." The statement continued, "Along with this, the president also remarked that during the NEC system inspection conducted last year, hacking attempts by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) made data manipulation possible, and that the firewall was virtually non-existent."

The NEC explained, "These statements are either inaccurate or exaggerated. From July 3 to September 22 last year, the NEC, NIS, and Korea Internet & Security Agency jointly conducted a 12-week security consulting on the NEC's information security system." It further stated, "To ensure an efficient inspection, a security consulting task force was formed, and various information and materials requested by the NIS were provided and supported to the fullest extent. To facilitate smooth progress of the security consulting, system configuration diagrams, information asset status, system access administrators, and test accounts were provided in advance, and internal security systems such as intrusion detection and blocking were not applied within the possible scope."

The NEC said, "Although some vulnerabilities were found as a result of the security consulting, no traces of election system breaches due to North Korean hacking were discovered." It added, "Most of these vulnerabilities were addressed with security enhancements before the 22nd National Assembly election was held."

Moreover, the NEC stated, "Even if there is a possibility of hacking the election system, it does not translate into election fraud in reality." It emphasized, "For technical possibilities to lead to actual election fraud, numerous internal collaborators would have to systematically participate by providing system-related information to hackers, disable the commission's security monitoring system, and replace physical ballots to match manipulated values without being detected by countless observers, which is practically an impossible scenario."

The NEC stressed, "Voting and counting in our country are conducted through 'physical ballots' and 'public manual counting,' with information systems and machinery serving only as auxiliary means." It added, "Numerous clerks, related officials, observers, and voters participate in the voting and counting process, and the counting results can be verified at any time through the physical ballots."

The NEC also stated, "Through the president's recent address, it has been clearly confirmed that the unconstitutional and illegal acts of the martial law troops' unauthorized occupation of the NEC building and attempts to seize the computer servers have no basis in the Constitution or laws." It strongly condemned these acts and urged, "We strongly denounce this and once again call on the relevant authorities to investigate the truth of this serious matter threatening democracy and to take appropriate legal measures accordingly."

Earlier that day, President Yoon said in his address, "Before I made the grave decision of declaring emergency martial law, there were many more serious matters that I could not reveal directly." He added, "How can the public trust the election results when the computerized system managing the core of democracy?the election?is so flawed? Therefore, I instructed the Minister of National Defense to inspect the NEC's computerized system."