SEOUL, Aug. 3 (Yonhap) -- Significant gaps have been found between the number of voters who cast ballots in the June 3 local elections and official vote counts, possibly suggesting a new form of alleged data manipulation by the National Election Commission (NEC), Yonhap News Agency learned Monday.

Yonhap analyzed the number of voters reported every hour at each polling station and found discrepancies between the two figures at 337, or 78.9 percent, of Seoul's 427 administrative districts.

At a polling station in Gwanak Ward's Samseong-dong, for example, the total number of voters who cast ballots at the station tallied at the closing of polls was 7,680, whereas the ballot count from the same station was 7,299, resulting in a difference of 381 people.

In the case of a polling station in Seongbuk Ward's Samseon-dong, the total voter number at the end of the day was tallied at 7,454, but the ballot count came to 7,270, revealing a gap of 184 votes.

A prosecution-police task force was launched in June to investigate ballot shortages reported on Election Day, an unprecedented event that forced some voters to turn back without casting their ballots.

The task force has since found evidence suggesting that NEC officials and election workers covered up errors in turnout, such that if a polling station erroneously inputted 1,000 voters instead of 100 at a certain hour, the difference of 900 was allocated evenly across nine other polling stations until the actual turnout at the nine matched the higher number.

With the latest revelation, the task force has reportedly widened its investigation to look into whether data manipulation also occurred after polls closed.

hague@yna.co.kr

(END)

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