Page 47 - Interview Book(KOR)-2025-01

NEC and the Judiciary – Obstructing Election Integrity Efforts or ‘Aiding
and Abetting’ Electoral Fraud?

In any country with a legitimate electoral system, the National Election Commission
(or its equivalent) plays an indispensable role in ensuring the sanctity of the electoral
system. And the judiciary – ideally honest and independent – buttresses efforts by
citizens, civil society groups, and even the government to ensure a clean electoral
process.

In South Korea, however, some observers note that the NEC has become a law unto
itself, seemingly uninterested in election integrity. Or even worse, complicit by action
or inaction in subverting South Korea’s hard earned electoral process.

NEC has a history of refusing external audits by the Board of Audit and Inspection. It
claims to conduct its own internal audits. And lawmakers are reluctant to confront
the NEC.

Even raising the issue of possible ‘election irregularities’, much less ‘fraud’, in South
Korea opens one up to a lawsuit and punishment – given NEC aggressive defense of
its ‘ownership’ of elections in South Korea. And until recently, you’d also get a
damaging label as an ‘election denier’ or conspiracy ‘nut’.

The NEC has also been revealed to be the entity that most frequently has pressured
Facebook to remove posts and sanctions users – reportedly for mentioning electoral
fraud. YouTube has similarly been in the NEC’s crosshairs and channels claiming
(often with clear evidence) that South Korea’s electoral system has problems have
been shut down.

Normally, a nation’s judiciary will rein in the electoral commission or its equivalent,
and serve to ensure the integrity of electoral processes, systems, and procedures.

However, in South Korea this generally does not appear to be the case in recent
times.

Besides both the NEC and the judiciary reportedly being highly politicized, the NEC
and the courts have very close, almost incestuous, ties.

For starters, the chairman of the NEC is always a Supreme Court judge. During the
Moon Jae-In era and at the time of the 2020 National Assembly election the
chairman of the NEC was a close friend of President Moon.
Lawsuits involving elections are handled by the Supreme Court. And because
regional election commission chairs are also judges, they are reluctant to challenge
other judges – and there’s also an obvious conflict of interest.

Judges often are unwilling or reluctant to hear election fraud cases. Sometimes it is
because of reluctance to involve themselves in sensitive political matters. But at other
times it seems like a wish to avoid addressing the merits of a case, or more like
complicity in suppressing challenges to the integrity of the electoral system.

There are reported instances where South Korean courts go to great lengths either to
ignore evidence before their eyes or to mischaracterize it.

For example, on occasions when recounts have been allowed, they have produced
strange, clearly irregular ballots. But the courts have simply ignored these, and even

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