Fabricated election results fan baseless South Korea voter fraud claims

South Korea's election commission said polls that handed a stinging defeat to President Yoon Suk Yeol's party were closely monitored, contrary to social media posts that presented baseless voter figures as evidence of tampering. The figures, which purported to show that more than 95 percent of overseas voters backed the opposition party, are not based on official data.

"Overseas voters... Democratic Party 95.7%, People Power Party 4.3%," read a Korean-language Facebook post from April 21, 2024.

"This is the result of votes between switched out wholesale".

The post appeared to suggest that the People Power Party's crushing defeat in the April 10 election was due to vote rigging.

The result increased the opposition Democratic Party's stranglehold on parliament and turned Yoon into a lame duck president for his remaining three years in office.

The post shows a National Election Commission (NEC) poster about overseas absentee voters -- those registered as living in South Korea but who were abroad on polling day (archived link)

These citizens were invited to register to vote in overseas polling stations (archived link).

Similar Facebook posts made the same claim here, here and here.

The figures appeared to originate in a YouTube video by South Korean content creator Gong Byeong-ho, who previously claimed the 2020 election was fraudulent (archived link).

According to the video, 95.7 percent of overseas absentee voters cast their ballot for the Democratic Party, with just 4.3 percent voting for the People Power Party.

It also purports to show the number of votes cast for these parties by other types of voter, including early voters, election-day voters and postal voters.

Gong said a "former government worker" called Choi Jung-ku compiled the figures. AFP could not independently verify that claim.

'Absolutely no basis'

A spokesman from South Korea's National Election Commission (NEC) dismissed Gong's video.

"We honestly can't say much about this claim other that it has absolutely no basis and clearly goes against publicly disclosed election results," he told AFP on April 25.

According to NEC figures, 80,125 overseas absentee voters cast their ballots in the 2024 election -- 56,713 chose the Democratic Party, 21,666 backed the People Power Party and 1,746 opted for independent and third-party candidates (archived link).

An AFP calculation found that represented 70.8 percent of votes for the Democratic Party, 27.0 percent for the People Power Party and 2.2 percent for independent and third-party candidates.

That is significantly lower than social media posts' claim that the Democratic Party secured 95.7 percent of votes from overseas absentee voters.

The NEC spokesman added that it was highly unlikely that all votes cast would go to either the Democratic Party or People Power Party, as posts claimed.

An AFP review of the NEC's figures found that independent and third-party candidates received some portion of the vote in every South Korean district with more than two candidates.

The NEC spokesman said 76,000 election officials and thousands of independent observers were deployed to monitor the elections.

"The entire process is closely watched and there is no possibility of tampering that could have led to these arbitrary figures that falsely say the overseas vote share between the two parties stood at 9 to 1," he said.