19th Presidential Election: Special Observation Team to Check for Fair and Transparent Counting 

= NEC operating a special observation team composed of citizens recommended by political parties, civic groups, academia and the press association =

The National Election Commission of the Republic of Korea (NEC) is operating a special observation team to strengthen the transparency and credibility of the counting process for the 19th presidential election.

The 16-member observer team is composed of citizens recommended by the five political parties with seats in the National Assembly, civic groups, academia and the press association.

This observer team will check the entire counting processes from the preparations for ballot counting, such as the inspections, checks and testing of the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machine, to the actual ballot counting on election day. 

At the first meeting held on February 28 the special observation team were given information including on the counting procedure using the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machine, and after a demonstration of the machine visited the counting machine storage facility at Gunpo-Si in Gyeonggi province to check the current storage and inspection status.  

In the future the special observation team will attend a security advisory meeting to be held around 60 days before the election day to observe the process of issuing of security cards and testing of the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machine.

Around 30 days before the election the team will also check the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machine storage and inspection status, the training of machine operators and the testing process for the machine itself. On the day before the election, the observation team will inspect the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machine user authentication, check for any forgery or falsification and inspect the final test process. 

On election day, it is expected that the special observation team will visit arbitrarily selected local counting centers and observer the counting and reporting processes, including the operation of the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machine and will visit the election situation room of the relevant election commission. 

The NEC announced that it will communicate with the public on the transparency of the ballot counting process through measures such as allowing this observation team inspect the whole counting process from the preparing of the optical scan ballot sorting and counting machines to the operation of counting centers. The NEC hopes that through this observation, the 19th presidential election will be a beautiful election that everyone can trust.