Police vow thorough crackdown on election crimes

As early voting began Friday for the April 10 general elections, the National Police Agency (NPA) declared an all-out fight against election crimes, offering special promotions to police officers credited with busting election fraud. In an unprecedented move, the NPA will deploy about 2,000 officers to closely monitor the entire process of transferring early voting papers, according to NPA officials. The officers will thoroughly accompany postmen who transport early voting papers to the concerned election districts during the two days of early voting, they said. Moreover, about 14,000 police officers will oversee the handover of early voting ballots to post offices, as in previous elections. The NPA will give special promotions to police officers, who produce achievements in preventing, detecting or collecting excellent intelligence on voting and ballot counting irregularities, obstruction of ballot box transfers and election-related hacking, they said. The measures come as some YouTubers have raised sus picions over possible fraud in the process of transferring early voting ballots from post offices to election commissions. NPA Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun, while presiding over a meeting of ranking police officers Thursday, vowed to provide full support to ensure that this year's general elections are fairer and more transparent than ever before. Source: Yonhap News Agency