Posts misleadingly compare South Korea's poll workforce with other countries

"The only answer is the shutdown of the National Election Commission (NEC)," reads a Korean-language Facebook post shared on March 5 by Min Kyung-wook, a former ruling People Power Party lawmaker.

"US population: 350 million / US election commission workers, around 300. India population 1.4 billion / India election commission workers, around 550. China population 1.4 billion / No election commission. South Korea population 50 million / election commission workers, 3,000!?!"

The post goes on to say, "And those 3,000 workers boss around local government employees to organise the elections."

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Screenshot of the misleading claim shared on Facebook, captured March 6

Min previously took aim at the results of the 2020 and 2024 parliamentary elections and claimed they were fraudulent. But his appeals were rejected by South Korea's top court due to lack of evidence (archived link).

The country's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol cited similar election fraud claims to justify his short-lived declaration of martial law in December 2024, when troops under his orders were deployed to the NEC headquarters on the outskirts of Seoul (archived link).

The Constitutional Court, which will determine whether Yoon's removal from office is upheld, is expected to release its verdict in mid-March.

The same graphic has been widely shared in multiple Facebook posts questioning the legitimacy of the NEC.

But election experts emphasise that each country operates its election system based on its political structure, history, and governance model, making direct workforce comparisons misleading.

"Given the disparate ways elections are conducted worldwide, comparisons that are simply based on population numbers and cursory staffing figures are far from objective," professor Jang Seung-won of the Korean Civic Education Institute for Democracy (KCEID), a research institute under the NEC, told AFP on March 6. 

United States

There is no central election body that oversees the polls at a federal level in the United States (archived link).

Jang said each US state manages its own elections, meaning that total staffing numbers are significantly higher than those in the misleading graphic.

An estimate by Reed College's Elections & Voting Information Center puts the country's total election workforce at "somewhere around 20,000" (archived link). That figure does not include temporary workers and staff from other government departments who assist with elections during peak periods.

The majority of the workforce in US elections consists of poll workers. Data analysed by the Pew Research Center shows "roughly 644,000 poll workers assisted with in-person and/or early voting in the 2022 general election" (archived link).

Some federal agencies, such as the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), administer federal campaign finance law and test voting systems (archived links here and here).

The FEC has a permanent staff that has fluctuated to around 300 in recent years, according to a 2024 staffing report, while the EAC has over 80 full-time employees according to its official website (archived links here and here).  

India

The Election Commission of India operates a separate secretariat in New Delhi "consisting of about 550 officials", according to its website (archived link).

While the commission supervises, directs and controls election work, it is assisted by a large staff at the district and constituency levels who undertake functions related to elections and other responsibilities. 

In a countrywide general election, the country mobilises "more than twelve million polling personnel and civil police forces" organised by the commission.

China

There are no dedicated national-level election commissions in China. 

Most elections in China follow an indirect system, where representatives at lower levels elect officials at higher levels (archived link). The National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, is composed of deputies from dozens of electoral units (archived links here and here).

Direct elections of delegates are applied to county and township-level people's congresses (archived link). 

South Korea

While the numbers cited in the claim for the United States and India include election workers solely on the national level, a spokesperson for South Korea's NEC said its approximately 3,000 employees account for the entire workforce both on local and national levels.

"Each country operates election bodies in different ways based on a variety of factors like political systems, territory, population, historical background and political culture, which result in different kinds of organisations," the spokesperson told AFP on March 5. 

He also said the NEC was established as a constitutional body with a permanent staff due to its history of military rule and election fraud in past decades.

KCEID also published a research paper in 2024 comparing election management bodies in South Korea and 10 other member countries of the OECD (archived link).

The study acknowledged large differences in the makeup and organisation of election bodies across different countries owed to "political and historical reasons". 

AFP previously debunked multiple claims surrounding the NEC and on fraudulent election claims here, here and here.