128 Election Commission Staff Accept Bribes... No Jeong-hee and No Tae-ak Receive Illegal Monthly Allowance of 2.9 Million Won

Board of Audit and Inspection's Audit Report on the National Election Commission After 4 Years
Low Necessity for Additional Audit on 'Sokuri Voting'

On the 10th, the Board of Audit and Inspection revealed in its regular audit of the Central Election Commission that numerous local election commission employees violated the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act (Kim Young-ran Act) by receiving golf and overseas travel expenses from affiliated election commissioners or using meeting attendance allowances as related expenses.

According to the audit report released by the Board of Audit and Inspection on the same day, out of 249 city, county, and district election commissions, 146 did not distribute the meeting attendance allowances to election commissioners but instead collectively deposited them into the general affairs committee account.

The audit of the election commissions by the Board of Audit and Inspection was conducted for the first time in four years since the institutional operation audit in February 2018, focusing on overall election commission operations and budget and accounting areas.

Non-standing election commissioners receive an allowance of 60,000 KRW per person when attending committee meetings during election periods. However, instead of distributing these allowances, they were accumulated as a common fund and used by employees, effectively implying that election commissioners and others received money or gifts such as overseas travel, golf, farewell money, and holiday commemorative money.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

For example, an individual A affiliated with the election commission accompanied election commissioners and their acquaintances on a trip to Boracay, Philippines, receiving a total of 1.49 million KRW from the accumulated meeting attendance allowances and collected expenses. Similarly, a case was uncovered where an election commissioner received 1.39 million KRW in expenses for a 2-night, 3-day golf trip to Jeju Island.

The Board of Audit and Inspection stated, "Twenty election commission employees received money or gifts by having their overseas and golf travel expenses covered, while 89 others received farewell money (minimum 100,000 KRW to maximum 500,000 KRW), and 29 received holiday commemorative money (minimum 100,000 KRW to maximum 900,000 KRW), among other benefits."

Regarding this, the Central Election Commission interpreted that "since election commissioners are senior public officials to election commission employees, employees can receive money or gifts from commissioners without any amount restrictions," but the Board of Audit and Inspection rebutted, stating, "public officials must not receive money or gifts related to their duties regardless of whether there is a quid pro quo." The Board emphasized that receiving expenses from commissioners through accompanying overseas or golf trips unrelated to election commission duties is a private act.

The Board of Audit and Inspection notified the Chairman of the Central Election Commission to conduct an internal investigation on the 128 individuals who received money or gifts and to take appropriate measures such as reporting violations to the competent court under the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act. They also urged that meeting attendance allowances should never be paid collectively to a single individual in the future and that management and supervision should be thorough to prevent employees from receiving money or gifts from election commissioners.

The Central Election Commission was also criticized for the Public Election Promotion Activity Allowance paid to non-standing commissioners since 2013. The chairman received 2.9 million KRW monthly, and seven commissioners each received 2.15 million KRW monthly as the Public Election Promotion Activity Allowance. Non-standing commissioners of the Central Election Commission already receive daily allowances (100,000 KRW per meeting) and agenda review allowances (100,000 KRW per agenda).

The Board of Audit and Inspection stated, "Since this does not correspond to actual expense reimbursement as stipulated by the Election Commission Act, we notified in August 2019 not to pay allowances violating the law and to revise related regulations," and criticized that "the Central Election Commission arbitrarily judged that the allowances should continue to be paid as a courtesy." The Board revealed that despite the audit's criticism, a total of 650 million KRW was improperly paid to 15 non-standing commissioners until November 2022.

The Board of Audit and Inspection explained that it requested disciplinary action against those responsible for improperly handling the related allowance payments and urged caution to prevent paying allowances other than actual expense reimbursements or monthly fixed amounts to non-standing commissioners.

Regarding the so-called 'Sokuri Voting' controversy, a poor management incident during the early voting of the 20th presidential election held last year, the Board judged that the need for additional audits was low after reviewing the election commission's internal audit results.

Previously, the election commission formed a special audit team and conducted an internal audit from September to November last year, revealing that the main causes of poor management of early voting were inaccurate predictions of voting demand from confirmed cases, adherence to the temporary polling station voting method, and insufficient cooperation with related agencies.

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