by WorldTribune Staff, December 7, 2024 Real World News

Was there a strategy behind South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol’s shocking decision to impose martial law late on Dec. 3, 2024?

Defense Minister Kim Yong-Hyun, who had advised Yoon on declaring martial law before resigning on Dec. 5, was asked by SBS why martial law troops had been immediately sent to the National Election Commission. Kim said, “It was to assess the necessity of an investigation into alleged election fraud.” In a separate interview with the daily Dong-a Ilbo, Kim noted that many citizens had raised suspicions of election fraud.”

The following account is based on a special report by Dr. Tara O for the East Asia Research Center.

Some 3 minutes after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-Yeol declared martial law at 10:27 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2024, troops arrived at the National Election Commission’s headquarters at the Gwacheon Government Building at 10:30 p.m.

Additionally, a total of 297 martial law troops were sent to the NEC buildings in at least 3 separate sites (the Gwacheon Government Building, the Gwanak Government Building, and the Suwon Election Training Center).

By contrast, 280 martial law troops did not arrive at the National Assembly until shortly after midnight, about 1 ½ hours later.

But why declare Martial Law to seize evidence? It is due to the interwoven relationship between the NEC and the judiciary, which has the authority to approve or reject a search warrant request.  The chairman of the NEC is also the sitting Supreme Court justice at the same time.  They are touted as “independent” bodies, but in reality, there is no separation of powers, as they are connected, and subject to a conflict of interest. … Under Martial Law, no warrant is needed. The evidence can be used for investigations and in courts, because it was obtained legally.

Prior to this point, the South Korean Supreme Court showed no interest in addressing election fraud concerns, but rather played an impediment. It dragged out election fraud cases, when the law requires these cases be heard within 180 days. Of the 130 election fraud cases filed after the April 2020 election, the first examination of some of the election evidence was 413 days later (more than a year later), which was for Incheon’s Yeonsu-eul precinct.

The Supreme Court validated numerous ballots that should have been thrown out, including stacks of freshly-minted ballots that showed no signs of handling. The Supreme Court accepted the NEC’s bizarre claim that these ballots are made from “memory paper” that snaps back to its original state of stiffness, and ruled the ballots as valid.

It has been a taboo to mention “election fraud.” There had been media blackout of the term “election fraud;” no main stream media covered it, despite public’s demand for investigations. Mentioning the term on social media led to censorship, especially under the Moon Jae-In administration. For instance, during January to June 2022, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, reported that Facebook restricted content based on requests from South Korean government agencies, and the entity that made the most request (98% or 19,074 items) to censor was the National Election Commission.

Related: Yoon faces impeachment in Seoul; Media silent as groundswell of support for martial law grows, December 6, 2024

The NEC refused a government audit regarding an early-vote controversy during the presidential election, saying, “The NEC is an independent body under the Constitution and cannot be regarded as the subject of the audit,” which is a preposterous claim. Every government body is accountable to the citizens in a Republic that Democratically elects its governing officials, especially when they operate on the taxpayers’ money.

From July 17 to Sept. 22, 2023, the NEC, the NIS, and the Korea Internet & Security Agency formed a joint security team to conduct security checks of NEC’s systems with the participation of opposition observers recommended by the National Assembly’s negotiating group. The NIS confirmed that it was possible to:

• Infiltrate the internal network of the National Election Commission through the Internet
• Hack the “Integrated Electoral Roll System” that manages voter registration status and voting status
• Change the contents of the electoral roll, such as marking “those who voted early as non-voters” or “those who did not vote early as people who voted,” and registering non-existent ghost voters as normal voters.
• Print unauthorized ballots such as a ballot with the same QR code as the actual early vote ballot
• Steal information on ballots, such as the stamp of the Board of Elections
• Infiltrate the NEC network since unauthorized PCs were connected to the communication equipment installed at the early voting stations

The NIS discovered more shocking facts, but did not publicize it at that time. The (NIS) found records of election fraud by computer tampering through forensics of a portion of the NEC’s servers during the joint security inspection, which was exclusively reported by SkyeDaily on Dec. 5, 2024.

The NIS could not investigate, because the Democratic Party of Korea single handedly passed a law taking away the NIS’s investigation authority during the Moon Jae-In administration.

The discovery was promptly reported to the Office of the President (President Yoon), but the information was apparently not passed to the prosecutor’s office. For prosecutors to investigate, they need a search warrant to gather the evidence, but the court would likely have blocked granting the warrant due to the conflict of interest between South Korean Supreme Court and the NEC, as explained in a separate report.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of Korea won the April 2020 and April 2024 General Elections in major landslides unheard of in Korean history, effectively gaining control of the National Assembly and its lawmaking capacity. Yet after both elections, it did not celebrate its huge victories, but remained solemn-faced and absolutely mum in response to election fraud allegations. Since then, they passed thousands of laws, including laws criminalizing those who send leaflet ballons to North Korea and those who mention North Korean special forces’ involvement in Gwangju in May 1980, both laws suppressing freedom of speech, which is guaranteed by the constitution.

Former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn said, “The reason why opposition lawmakers are able to do whatever they want at the National Assembly despite being substandard is because they were elected through fraudulent elections,” and added that “The record of election fraud remains intact at the NEC.”

It took Martial Law to conduct search and seizure of the NEC and for the major media outlets to finally utter “election fraud.”

Online comments in response to the Martial Law troops searching the NEC:

• If this is the reason, then I support Great Suk-yeol
• The National Assembly was the bait. Searched “the National Election Commission to obtain election fraud evidence,” right?
  I wondered why all the early votes went only to one side…I eagerly await the results
• This was the essence of the emergency situation. Have the National Assembly dogs gather at the National Assembly and search the NEC …
  Thoroughly investigate election fraud. In the general election 4 years ago, Yu Shi-min [former radical student activist and Minister under Rho Mu-Hyun] correctly predicted 180 seats and this time DPK official correctly guessed 190 seats, which are suspicious. They can’t correctly guess without election fraud. Thoroughly investigate.
• It seems like I’m watching a movie. During the National Assembly elections, even I thought it strange that the ratios of early votes (to election day votes) were the same and there were places where there were more ballots than voters. Please look under every stone and uncover.
• Search warrants are not issued for the NEC because it’s a constitutional body.>impossible to investigate election fraud>Martial Law dispenses with the warrant and search/seized the NEC. Great Suk-yeol
• Why does the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lose with the election day votes, but win only through early votes? Haha
• The NIS reported the electronic manipulation election fraud to President Yoon. The court didn’t even issue a search warrant, claiming it is outside public security. So there’s only martial law.
• After opening the early ballots, the Democratic Party of Korea always wins by a landslide. After 3,000 votes behind with the election day votes, it reverses immediately after adding the early votes. This doesn’t make sense. How can there be such difference for the residents in the same area?? It doesn’t make sense. It sure felt like election fraud from the beginning. I really hope they do proper investigation.
• The main stream media is handling the election fraud, ha ha. They must’ve found out something? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. When such taboo topic of election fraud is discussed by the media, there’s got to be something.
• Wow, I’m getting goose bumps…he’s so cool. I really wondered why, why did he do it, even if he knew (that the DPK would try to impeach him). It seems it’s election fraud 10,000%….let’s go eradicate the left. Cheers, great Suk-yeol.
• This is like a movie. The National Assembly was a distraction and the NEC was the goal. If they found 100% election fraud evidence, then the Democratic Party of Korea would be disbanded. On top of election fraud is likely China controlling it.

There were more than 800 comments for just one article as this is written, but the commonality was that they want the election fraud investigated and the truth to emerge.

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The American Free Press is Back!

  Minutes after South Korea’s Yoon imposed martial law, troops raided National Election Commission, WorldTribune.com