Early Votes, Digital Vote Counting Machine, and Digital Election Fraud Suspicions in South Korea

[나가자]

Early Votes, Digital Vote Counting Machine, and Digital Election Fraud Suspicions in South Korea

한국의 사전선거, 전자계표기 그리고 디지털 선거 부정 의혹

2020-5-6, Tara O

  ↓기사원문↓

https://eastasiaresearch.org/2020/05/06/early-votes-digital-vote-counting-machine-and-digital-election-fraud-in-south-korea/ 

아래 내용은 기사 원문에서 빠진 부분이 많으므로, 기사원문을 보시기 바랍니다!

One of the pillars of a liberal democracy is free and fair elections.  Trust in, and the integrity of, the electoral process are vital to achieving free and fair elections.  Election fraud invalidates the legitimacy of elected candidates and governments and destabilizes societies.  If enough suspicions arise, questioning the credibility of the election process, then further steps are needed to restore confidence in the system.  Numerous suspicions of election fraud arose during and after South Korea’s general election in April 2020, especially a new field of digital fraud involving vote counting machines, computer hardware and software, and Huawei information network telecommunications equipment.  It also involved QR codes present only in the mail in and early-voted ballots.

Analog vs. Digital Fraud

Committing an analog method of fraud of ballot switching, while possible, requires a lot of manpower, perhaps hundreds of people.  For digital fraud, it only takes a few–a planner, a software programmer, and possibly a go-between person.  This small number of people involved

The ballot counting machines need instructions for sorting and counting.  The instructions can come from the QR codes on the early-vote ballots as they are counted, or it can also be sent from an external source to the vote counting central server using the internet, e.g,  the LG U+ network. (5:46)  Either way, it can produce an outcome that is different than the voters’ intent.

The IT

The IT Network

The National Election Commission chose LG U+ 5G, which uses Huawei equipment, to provide internet and wifi for handling the pre-vote ballots.  Instead of establishing its own secured network, which it could have had by using the very secure Gwangju/Daejeon Information Data Center (IDC)

QR Code vs Bar Code

Vote tallying machine reads the ballots through optical recognition characters, such as QR Codes and Bar Codes.  

QR Code, Bar Code

The QR Codes were used on the early/mail-in ballots while Bar Codes were used on the election day ballots.  Why were they not uniform?  One theory is that the software in the central server needed the difference to instruct the vote counting machine to treat each differently. (10:52)  For instance, the software can have instructions to count the Bar Codes as the citizens voted, but for QR Codes, count them differently regardless of how the voters voted.  For instance, it can be instructed to re-route every 4th ballot that was voted for one party to another party.  What kind of instructions the software contains really depends on the imagination of the programmer, given a specific purpose.

A QR Code can store a lot more information about the voters.  It can also store instructions or identifiers that a software of the vote counting machine can follow or recognize.  The machine, rather than sorting by who/what the voters selected, can sort based on the information it recognizes on the QR Code.  This method would not necessarily need an external server sending instructions.

These are possibilities, but what caused the controversy?

South Korea’s general election on April 15, 2020

The percentage of the early votes/mail-in votes were surprisingly high

There are other liabilities, such as ballots being transported in open baskets (see video heresued

Ballots in unsecured containers being transported, South Korea General Election 2020

While there are other suspicions, such as pre-printing the election supervisor’s seals on the ballots for early votes and the National Election Commission’s refusal to install CC Cameras in where the early-voted ballots are stored, the focus of the report will be on statistics and the serious vulnerabilities of digital vote counting aspect to election fraud on a large scale.  With the advent of technology, along with changes to laws to allow early- and mail-in voting, numerous vulnerabilities were created in what should be a process marked by trust, integrity, security, and accountability as high or higher than that used in criminal investigations.

Election Data and Statistics

In addition to the above suspicions, statistics have provided further concern of fraud.  A YouTuber Vasilia TV downloaded the data from the National Election Committee (NEC) website and conducted an analysis.  [Note:  The NEC blocked the downloading of the data several days ago, after people downloaded the data to analyze it.]  He noticed a large difference between the 20th and 21st (April 2020) general elections.  Whereas the difference

He points ou

Additional controversy arose demanded

Professor Walter Mebane, Jr.’s eforensics statistical model

Professor Walter MeBane’s report “Frauds in the Korea 2020 Parliamentary Election∗” dated April 29, 2020 is causing a stir.  Walter MeBane is a professor of Political Science and Statistics at University of Michigan, and he is the leading expert on detecting fraud in elections.  His Election Forensics (eforensicsused the eforensics statistical model

The eforensics model shows

Mebane noted in the report that “Visually and by the numbers, frauds occur most frequently for pre-vote units (43.1% are fraudulent), next most frequently for for district-level, election-day, not abroad units (3.14% fraudulent) then next most frequently postal election day units (.925% are fraudulent). None of the abroad units are fraudulent.”

Thus, the data suggests fraud occurred and it occurred most frequently in pre-votes.  

Red:  Fraudulent observations, Blue:  Non-fraudulent observations, Frauds in the Korea 2020 Parliamentary Election∗, p. 8

The eforensics Model shows:

Democratic Party (Deobureo Minjoo Party) focused specification overall about 1,491,548 votes are fraudulent, and of the fraudulent votes about 1,122,169 are manufactured (the remaining 369,379 are stolen—counted for the leading party when they should have been counted for a different party). Overall, according to the eforensics model, about 10.43% of the votes for the Democratic Party candidates are fraudulent…manufactured votes are votes that the model estimates should have been abstentions, but instead were observed as votes for the leading party.

The report also shows

The report caveats

For more information on Mebane’s report, see here

Integrity Analysis of October 20, 2019 Election in Bolivia

On November 1, 2019, the Organization of American States began performing an audit to analyze the integrity of the October 20, 2019 elections in Bolivia and later published agreed

[Note:  The OAS is a regional organization with 35 member countries in North America and South America.  The above report is herehere

The team comprised

The team’s method of verifying the integrity of the election and the reliability of the result “acquire detailed insight into the processes involved in the vote count, the transmission of preliminary results, the official tally, and the chain of custody of electoral materials.”

Specifically, the team audited:

a. The authenticity and reliability of the vote count records (tally sheets) and of the data input into the electoral results transmission system and the official count system.

b. The Plan for comprehensive custody of all electoral materials (tally sheets, ballots, voters register).

c. Infrastructure and operation of the I.T.systems used to transmit preliminary results and the official count. 

d. Uploading flows of the data on preliminary electoral results and the official count

The team found numerous flawsconcernsproblems include forged signatures, alteration of tally sheets, and deficient chain of custody, 

Responses from the opposition

Due to election fraud suspicions, National Assemblyman Min Kyung-wook (민경욱), United Future Party, on April 28, 2020, filed with the Yeonsu District Court in Incheon to preserve the election materials for further investigations.  Min lost by 2,893 votes to Democratic Party of Korea’s Jung Il-yong (정일영). (The elected candidates will take their seats as of May 30, 2020.)  The court granted

The servers used for the election are rented from a contractor and they are to be destroyed on May 1, 2020.  Servers are not the only crucial part of the election system, as seen in the audit report of the 2019 election in Bolivia, but contain the software and other information logs, so preserving the servers is key to the investigations in determining whether fraud occurred.  By rejecting the request to preserve the servers and other communications equipment gear, the judge’s decision is tantamount to destroying the evidence.  

Additionally, the Yeonsu District Election Commission handed over the same day ballots, but defied the court order and refused to provide early-vote ballots.  Thus, the actions of the judge and the local election commission also raise suspicions that erodes the public confidence in the election process and outcome.

Min Kyun-wook (in the middle). The signs show “Citizens want to know the truth”

Others, such as the Christian Liberty Unification Party, also have submitted

The rest of the United Future Party has not been forthcoming in supporting its member Min Kyung-wook.  In fact, Lee Jun-seok (이준석), who also lost the election, has been not only been vocal in denying

Hwang Kyo-ahn, the former leader of the United Future Party, resigned

The citizens pressured the United Future Party to look into this matter, and the party leadership considered

Thus, the burden of challenging and monitoring the situation is falling flatly on the concerned citizens, rather than the elected officials of the largest opposition party, the United Future Party, except one representative, who has less than a month left as a lawmaker.

“Terrified and Afraid”

Meanwhile, the winning party is also behaving oddly.  It is remarkable by how muted the reaction has been from the Democratic Party of Korea.  Yang Jung-cheol (양정철),  the head of the Democratic Party of Korea’s think tank Institute for Democracy, which is responsible for the party’s election strategy, should have been elated at such a sweeping election victory, but was not.  Yang, who is also President Moon Jae-in’s confidant

Yang answeredexpressed

Lee Geun-hyung (이근형), the Strategy and Planning Committee Chair of the Democratic Party of Korea, also crucial for the election strategy and outcome, also said he is leaving the position and the party, posting

From left, Lee Geun-hyung, Yang Jung-chul leaving lunch with Lee Hae-chan and others in Yoido

Yang also said

Lee Hae-chan also did not express great joy, despite his party winning such an unprecedented number of seats.  His expression‎‎ was serious, and he said

From front to back, Lee Hae-chan, Lee Nak-yeon, Lee In-yong, Cho Kuk, Kim Sang-jo

Lee talked of his party seizing powersign

The Central Election Commission

Cho, Kyu-Young (조규영), Chairman, Election Division 1, National Election Commission, recognized that the controversy about a potential election fraud has not disappeared, but stated flatly that there will not be a recount.  He further stated

As mentioned earlier, the National Election Commission already took “a strong action,” by suing the  Citizens’ Solidarity for Fair Elections, charging the citizens’ group with “distribution of false facts” for posting stickers encouraging people to vote on the election day, rather than pre-vote.

On January 24, 2019, President Moon Jae-in appointed

The way an important position in the National Election Commission was appointed does not bring about confidence among the public.  Additionally, the Commission threatening, rather than taking more proactive approaches to address the public concerns, is demoralizing.

Conclusion

Using technology to conduct election fraud, or at least irregularities, is certainly possible, and lax processes are genuine concerns, as seen in the Bolivian election in October 2019.  Professor MeBane’s eforensics statistical model also shows “fraud” in South Korea’s general election in April 2020.  South Korean citizens have also become more vigilant, and as such, noticed numerous questionable activities that raise the possibilities of fraudulent election.

In essence, the election process and outcome did not inspire confidence among the voters, but raised questions about them, and this is the real problem.  In that case, steps should be taken to restore the confidence, such as conducting an investigation of the election similar to that of the OAS model, recount the votes, and change the election law or procedures to address the gaps and flaws in the election process to be applied to future elections. 

Additionally, other democracies should take note about the increased potential for election fraud with the advent of new technology and procedures, and be careful about the vote counting machine system and the early voting process.

Free and Fair elections are too important to liberal democracy for the citizens to not demand integrity and transparency of the election process, and for the authorities to not take measures to enhance trust in the election system.

https://eastasiaresearch.org/2020/05/06/early-votes-digital-vote-counting-machine-and-digital-election-fraud-in-south-korea/ 

[나가자]

Numerous suspicions of election fraud arose during and after South Korea’s general election in April 2020, especially a new field of digital fraud involving vote counting machines, computer hardware and software, and Huawei information network telecommunications equipment. It also involved QR codes present only in the mail in and early-voted ballots.
수많은 선거부정 의혹이 발생했다. 한국의 2020년 4월 총선 기간 동안과 총선 후에/
특히 새로운 분야인 투표계수기, 하드웨어 및 소프터웨어, 그리고 화웨이정보통신 기기와 관련된 디지털 부정(선거)/
우편투표와 사전투표에만 있는 QR코드와 관련되어있다!

[나가자]

부문:Elections, ​South Korea

키워드: Bolivia, Democratic Party, Deobureo Minjoo, early vote, eforensics, Fraud, mail-in vote, pre-vote, United Future Party,vote counting machine.

[나가자]

부분: 선거, 한국
키워드: 볼리비아, 민주당, 더불어민주, 사전투표, 이포렌식, 선거부정, 우편투표, 사전투표, 마래통합당,투표계수기