There is no true democracy without honest election!
I’m delighted to be here. I’m going to share ideas about elections. Particularly, the importance of honest elections.
I in fact have very early memories – maybe 3 years old – of my mother telling me that Richard Nixon had lost the presidential election because in Chicago ‘dead people voted.’ I of course didn’t know what it meant. But I eventually did.
Elections are fundamental to democratic, consensual government. They reflect popular will and allow the peaceful transfer of power. They are a key piece of that ‘puzzle’ that allows civilized, stable, just societies to exist.
Of course, also needed are an independent, honest judiciary, a free press, apolitical intelligence and military services, and competent, clean legislators and bureaucracy.
But back to elections…
It is easy to take elections for granted. However, they are fragile things. Hard to establish and even harder to maintain.
Citizens want to protect them. Tyrants, despots, and certain type of politician want to subvert them.
Why? To keep power. And the perks that come with it. And to avoid accountability from the citizenry.
No shortage of examples. Just a couple weeks ago in Belarus, the President claimed victory with 80% of the vote. Not quite as bad as Saddam Hussein’s 99% election victories, but nobody much believes it. And millions of Belarusians in the streets are saying so. There’s Kenya in 2017. And every election ever held in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. (In fact, I was in Zimbabwe in 1979-1980 during the run-up to the tainted election that put Mugabe in power for the next 37 years.)
Even in the USA, for many years the expression ‘Chicago election’ meant a rigged election.
Permanent one party rule is the idea behind rigging elections.
One party rule:
Leads to corruption. And there’s intimidation and even violence as the party in power pressures any opposition. Opposition parties are ‘neutered’. One party rule also destroys free press, demoralizes citizenry – and destroys confidence in all government institutions. It distorts and destroys an economy, and the ‘despot’ looks to other ‘despots’ for alliances. This can go for a long time, but eventually society seethes and explodes and it all comes apart.
So, the electoral process needs to be protected at all costs – and indeed cherished.
I’d like to focus on one important point when thinking about honest elections: That is – how a government responds to allegations of electoral improprieties, or, in other words: charges of a rigged election.
The government response tells you at least two things: 1) something about the nature of the government itself; and 2) the likelihood election rigging charges might be true.
So, if the charges are blithely dismissed, ignored, or given only a cursory examination, that ought to raise some real doubts about the election.
Zimbabwe. Fraud and intimidation was rife. Her Majesty’s Government (UK) did nothing. Everything that happened after that in Zimbabwe was predictable.
More recently, the presence of armed men at polling places in Philadelphia, USA in 2008 – and the refusal of the Obama Department of Justice to prosecute still rankles.
Regarding the South Korea, April 2020 election
Now I’d like to speak about South Korea. Keep in mind that I’m an outside observer. And don’t have an axe to grind. Rather, I am interested in evidence and facts.
As I understand it, following the April 2020 elections, at least 25 candidates filed timely complaints of electoral impropriety, and over 100 other parties made allegations of electoral wrongdoing.
The allegations include:
Use of ballot counting machines that can be tampered with and hacked. Manufactured by a company with ties to Chinese technology companies sanctioned by the US government as security risks.
National Election Commission (NEC) server firewalls were provided by Huawei. And NEC computers were operated in NEC offices rather than at the Government Central Computing Center (GCCC), as is usually done.
(Recently, Papua New Guinea’s government data center – built by Huawei – was revealed to be constructed in a way that exposed it to outside hacking. In 2018, it was revealed Organization of African Union headquarters in Ethiopia – built by a Chinese company with Huawei involvement – had been thoroughly hacked for five years. Apparently intentionally.)
Manipulation of voting – especially during the early voting stage. With ‘early vote / out of district’ category being particularly susceptible.
· Reportedly there were 40 districts where the DPK candidates who lost on election day voting obtained 20-30% more than their rivals in early voting. And came back to win.
· Reportedly 37 districts where the number of votes was higher than the number of voters who voted in ‘early voting / within district.’
Mishandling of paper ballots. Identification of suspect ballots – such as the discovery of stacks of unfolded ballots at one voting site – and marked for the ruling party.
Serious problems with ‘chain of custody’ for ballots. Both during the election period and afterwards.
Reports of surveillance cameras at polling sites covered during Early Voting, but not on Election Day. The recording would be useful for matching the numbers of voters at a site with the number of votes submitted.
Claims that voting patterns and margins were suspicious – and intended to give ruling party candidates the edge.
Statistical analysis by University of Michigan professor, Walter Mabane – an experienced scholar of election fraud – tended to support these claims. Professor Mabane calculated that, on average, 7-7.5% of the election votes were ‘frauds’. The Professor did note that this is not conclusive of ‘bad acts.’ However, he nonetheless stated that the percentage of frauds was ‘relatively high’ for the several hundred elections he has studied.
Professor Mabane also cautioned that one should not rely on electronics systems to ensure a secure vote. He noted that all electronic systems can be hacked. Thus, he said that paper ballots are surest way to verify election results. And that a proper ‘chain of custody’ for the ballots is essential. As noted earlier, the allegations made after the election include serious ballot ‘chain of custody’ problems.
Also, the context of an election and the parties involved are important when assessing possible election rigging. It should be noted that the DPK’s chief election strategist travelled to China and signed a ‘policy cooperation’ agreement with a Chinese Communist Party entity in July 2019. This must be taken seriously given what we know of Chinese political influence activities regionally and worldwide.
Also, plausible motivations for ‘tipping’ an election in favor of one party – did exist. For example, South Korea’s longstanding alliance with the USA is not considered important, desirable, or even necessary in some quarters of the ROK political world, and in neighboring countries as well. Such parties might indeed have an interest in shaping election outcomes.
Finally, there is an allegation that the Chinese firm, Tencent, (another suspect firm on the US Government’s ‘danger’ list) worked closely with the DPK in analyzing ‘Big Data’ before and during the election. Also, DPK data gathering is alleged to have violated personal information protection laws.
I’ve described some of the allegations of election irregularities made by a number of different parties. This is arguably prima facie evidence that at least deserves a response from election and government authorities.
But what has been the official response?
This gets one’s attention.
The NEC does not appear to have responded diligently – to the extent it has responded at all.
Also, equipment, ballots, other records reportedly are not being preserved for later review and forensic examination.
The Supreme Court and District Courts have not, as far as I know, taken up the cases yet – despite usually doing so within three months of claims being filed.
The ‘integrated electoral roll’ has apparently not been release.
One doesn’t detect the incumbent administration showing much interest in addressing the allegations either.
This maybe is not surprising. But given the sanctity of the electoral process for a democracy like South Korea, simply ignoring the allegations does lead an outside observer to draw some inferences. And to wonder if something is being hidden?
The media isn’t digging into it either.
It is essential that citizens themselves bring election irregularities to light — and keep pushing the issue.
I would add that from an American’s perspective, the stability of a long-time American ally – and a democratic success story – is important.
So what happens in South Korea isn’t just something that happens an ‘ocean away’.
Moreover, the United States has it’s own election coming in November, and can learn from the South Korean experience.
So in my opinion, it is important to see what did or didn’t happen in April 2020. And as importantly, what the government in power does or doesn’t do to address it the concerns that were raised.
Question for the panel: Can you please explain what the NEC and the ruling administration are required by law to do when presented with claims of election fraud? How did they respond?Grant NewshamSeptember 4, 2020
Grant Newsham is a retired U.S. Marine officer and a former U.S. diplomat and business executive who lived and worked for many years in the Asia/Pacific region. He served as a reserve head of intelligence for Marine Forces Pacific, and was the U.S. Marine attaché, U.S. Embassy Tokyo on two occasions. He currently serves KCPAC as president.
