Presidential Office: "Decided Not to Select Top 3 National Proposals... Abuse Incident Occurred"

I suspect there may be forces trying to interfere with voting... unlikely to file complaints or lawsuits

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] The Presidential Office announced on the 1st that it will not select a ‘Top 3’ this time, citing an abusing incident during the public online voting for the ‘Top 10 National Proposals’ held from the 21st to the 31st of last month.

A senior official from the Presidential Office said at a briefing held at the Presidential Office in Yongsan, Seoul, in the afternoon, "Many citizens responded," but added, "During the voting process, numerous abusing cases from overseas IPs appeared, so we judged that selecting the Top 3 proposals was not appropriate."

The Presidential Office conducted an online vote to select the top 3 excellent policies from 10 proposals deemed feasible for policy implementation, out of about 13,000 proposals, complaints, and petitions received through the National Proposal website from the 21st to the 31st of last month.

Regarding the abusing issue, the official explained, "We tried to block such cases coming from overseas IPs and others, but indirect abusing continued without interruption, making it impossible to determine discrimination. Therefore, we judged that proposing a Top 3 based on the abusing incident was inappropriate."

He also explained that while it might be difficult to call it abusing when multiple people use the same IP in places like the Presidential Office or subway facilities, there were cases of voting using overseas IPs.

He emphasized, "We felt as if someone was trying to obstruct the proposals and systems we are trying to implement," adding, "Since such cases came through overseas IPs, it feels like there are forces trying to disrupt the online voting."

The official continued, "This is not a hacking or security issue, and it is not a situation we can inspect," and said, "We will carefully consider and improve the system next time." When asked if they intended to apologize to the public, he said, "For the 10 excellent proposals, the President’s watch was awarded as a prize." When other reporters asked if there was an intention to file a complaint for obstruction of business against those who abused the system, citing similarities to the manipulation of likes in the Druking incident, he denied it.

The official said, "Since National Proposals are not immediately decided as policies, and being number one does not mean immediate policy reflection, we decided to carefully consider whether to introduce an identity verification system to prevent duplicate voting and improve the system."

On the other hand, following the public contest for the Presidential Office’s name and the selection of candidates for this National Proposal, the failure to reach a final conclusion is expected to spark controversy over the effectiveness of such public voting formats.

Furthermore, mentioning overseas IPs as a factor obstructing the Presidential Office’s tasks, while not yet fully understanding the exact details and not requesting an investigation, is likely to attract criticism.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.