Prosecutors find most votes came from IP addresses linked to multiple voting


Prosecutors said Wednesday they had detected a massive illegal voting in the Unified Progressive Party’s elections for proportional representative candidates in March.

The prosecution said that 18,885 ballots or 51.8 percent of the total votes, were from Internet Protocol addresses suspected of being used for multiple voting.

Traces of double-voting were detected at a total of 3,654 IP addresses and among them, 345 addresses involved more than 10 voters.

In some cases, more than 100 party members turned out to have voted from the same location and some of the repeat votes were cast every 10 seconds.

A total of 10 candidates won considerable support through such rigged-votes, confirming the allegations that the most of the party figures were involved in the vote-rigging.

“Double-votes have been detected all throughout the entire primary process, proving that the UPP’s candidate selection was generally illicit,” said a prosecutorial official.

Rep. Lee Seok-ki, one of the two disputed proportional representatives, also won 58.8 percent of his votes through such double-voting.

Also, cases of repeated resident registration or phone numbers were detected, hinting at the illegal use of the party members’ personal information.

Some of the records included non-existent resident registration numbers such as 0000000 or phone numbers such as 010-0000-0000, according to officials.

The prosecutorial probe result was based on the UPP’s member register, voting records and online voting server, which was seized in May.

The prosecution is planning to dispatch officials and copies of the party’s voter register to its regional branches where the disputed IP addresses are located, according to officials.

Also, authorities are expected to summon UPP officials who actually supervised the votes for detailed questioning.

While prosecutors stepped up the primary probe, the scandal-ridden party is to hold its leadership election next week.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)