Mnet's 'M! Countdown' is still under fire for the recent controversy surrounding Big Bang's recent win on the music program as EXO-L's protest that EXO had been winning until the end, demanding an explanation while speculating unfair favoritism from the show.  Mnet had already stepped up to address this, stating that there had been some glitch in the system, but the voting had gone fairly as they only accepted votes up to 9:00 AM KST as normal.

The Mnet rep had stated, "It's true that the voting page in our Japan branch was open after 9 and that Chinese fans cast their votes.  However, we only counted the results of the votes up to 9," and said that the voting page had remained open after 9 due to a glitch.

However, Mnet Japan had stated something differently, raising further interest.  It stated, "The head office in Korea met with a system error response, but Mnet Japan's system had no error," denying that the voting page on Mnet Japan had remained open past its time. Mnet Japan continued, "We've confirmed the corrupt access source that had misused the script source, and that source is now closed," claiming that some negative method had been used to cast votes despite the closing of the voting page.  

SEE ALSO: Soyeon makes bold statements about Soojin, HYBE during (G)I-DLE's '2024 MAMA' performance

Regarding this contradicting statement from Mnet Japan, 'M! Countdown's rep told CBS No Cut News on June 11, "In the process of relaying this situation, there was an error in communication," explaining that Mnet Korea and Japan had miscommunicated with each other.

It seems that Mnet Japan had been right in claiming that the voting page had closed at 9 like it was supposed to, but through some underhand means, the voting was forced open again. The rep stated, "The page was closed, but through some negative method, there was access and the voting counts went up.  As a result, through this access, the voting page opened once again.  We were talking about the same situation, but our way of explaining had been different."

Regarding the method that had managed to break into their server, the rep stated, "It is true that it was a high-level method that was utilized.  We need to confirm from where it was activated, but only the tallied data up to 9 was reflected in the final scores.  From hereon, in order to raise public confidence [in us], we will reinforce the method of accessing votes and aim for perfection."