The main opposition party said it will accept all demands raised by contenders in the ongoing primary race to alleviate concerns of irregularities surrounding its mobile voting system.
Democratic United Party (DUP) spokesman Park Yong-jin told reporters that all suspicions regarding the voting system will be reviewed after the supreme council decided to accept calls made by two of the four hopefuls taking part in the primary.
Former DUP chief Sohn Hak-kyu and former South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Doo-kwan said Wednesday that election inspectors found 3,653 cases of violations to the mandatory mobile phone calling rules in the Jeju and Ulsan elections.
The rules, which are designed to give registered voters multiple opportunities to cast their votes, call on a vote tallying company working for the party, to place five automated calls to every registered voter to urge them to vote. If he or she fails to respond after the fifth attempt, that person is automatically removed from the voting roster.
Checks on phone calls made claimed that the "minimum five call" rules were not followed, which deprived many people of the right to vote, and that in two regional races, the number of votes disqualified could have affected results.
"Experts who checked the so-called irregularities argued that there were no serious problems found and vote counting took place normally in accordance with pre-set primary rules," Park said.
He said that this view was explained to campaign managers of four presidential hopefuls. The party official added that representatives from the four candidates will be allowed to fully take part in future examinations of mobile voting records.
Sohn and Kim had initially called for all mobile votes to be halted, at least until all outstanding controversies were resolved.
The spokesman added that despite the mishap, the DUP's primary race schedule will move inexorably forward. The party will hold a primary in Gwangju and South Jeolla Province later in the day. The region with 14,000 registered voters is expected to help gauge who will win the DUP's presidential ticket for the Dec. 19 election.
Since the primary race kicked off on Aug. 15 in Jeju, seven regional races have been concluded. Rep. Moon Jae-in, a former chief of staff to the late President Roh Moo-hyun, is ahead of his three rivals after winning 61,904 votes or 45.9 percent of all votes tallied. He was followed by Sohn and Kim with former commerce minister Chung Sye-kyun struggling to stay in the race in last place. (Yonhap)