Academics and Scholars Find Numerous Statistical Anomalies in South Korea's Most Recent Parliamentary Election

    SEOUL, KOREA, June 02, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The most recent April 15th parliamentary election in South Korea have been fraught with allegations of fraud. These allegations stem from analyses of data published by Korea's National Election Commission (NEC) on early voting and election day voting results, and the apparent statistical anomalies observed between the two. Such discoveries have compelled many concerned citizens, academics, and scholars to suggest that the early voting process may have been fraudulently manipulated.

The first of these statistical anomalies is the significant differences observed between early voting and election day voting results. In every single one of the 253 voting districts across the nation, the candidates from the ruling Democratic Party consistently performed better in early voting than on election day. In fact, the democrats performed on average 11% better, and the conservatives 11% worse, in early voting than on election day. These differences are even more pronounced in Seoul. In all of the 49 voting districts, democratic candidates performed between 10 to 16% better in early voting than on election day. On average, the democrats performed 12% better, and the conservatives fared 12%, worse in early voting than on election day.

Given that the voters who cast their votes before and on election day are from the same statistical population, that there is such a significant difference between early voting and election day voting results is puzzling. In the previous parliamentary election in 2016, the percentage difference in votes won between early voting and election day was around 3% for both parties.

Then there are also the odd statistical consistencies in early voting results among the candidates within the same districts. Taking one of the subdistricts of Incheon, a city, as an example, when you multiply the constant of 0.39 to the number of votes won by each candidate through in-district voting, the results would match the number of votes each candidate won through out-of-district voting. Numerous other subdistricts have shown similar patterns. Within 43 of the 253 electoral districts, each candidate's in-district and out-of-district voting ratios were nearly identical.

To add to the growing list of anomalies is also the existence of "ghost" votes. In 37 electoral districts, the results showed that there were more votes casted than the number of voters who voted. In many of these districts, the number of votes exceeded the number of voters by 1, with few districts the difference being as large as 10 votes. In regards to these anomalies, the NEC explained that this was "probably the result of votes from different districts being accidentally mixed in or accidentally including damaged votes that should have been separated out."

Allegations of fraud arising from these statistical anomalies gained international attention when Walter Mebane, Jr., Professor of Political Science and Statistics at the University of Michigan and a member of the Michigan Election Security Task Force published his own analysis on South Korea's 2020 general election on his website with a paper titled Anomalies and Frauds in the Korea 2020 Parliamentary Election. In the paper he states that "Taken together the eforensics estimates and EFT and spikes tests exhibit anomalies that strongly suggest the Korea 2020 legislative election data were fraudulently manipulated," before qualifying that statistical findings such these in the report should be followed up by a further investigation into what happened. However, despite widespread calls for an investigation, no such actions have been announced so far.

Byeong-Ho Gong, President of Gong Research Institute, who has been at the forefront of investigating allegations of fraud in Korea's 2020 general election says that "there are more than enough evidence and credible information to suggest that the recent general election may have been fraudulently manipulated. Fair elections are the bedrock of democracy and it is only right that the Blue House, the ruling and the opposing parties, the NEC, and most importantly, the Prosecutor's Office answer the people whom they serve and start a thorough investigation."

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Gong Byeong-Ho Research Institute, established in 2001, is a research and educational institute that publishes commentaries on economic and political current events and provides lectures and written products on areas of self-management, self-improvement, science of success, science of leadership, and future prospects.

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