While "ProduceX101" is still in the middle of vote manipulation controversy, the vote manipulation suspicion of the previous season, "Produce48", also became a discussion topic.

In the live broadcast final on July 19, "ProduceX101" ended this season after having picked members for the project group X1, including Kim Yohan, Kim Wooseok, Han Seungwoo, Song Hyeongjun, Cho Seungyoun, Son Dongpyo, Lee Hangyul, Nam Dohyon, Cha Junho, Kang Minhee, and Lee Eunsang.

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However, the suspicion of voting result manipulation broke out immediately after the broadcast, with the criticism on the unusual nature of the trainees' number of votes. The audience found that the difference in the number of votes from 1st position to 20th position had a certain rule, in which the number of votes between the 1st and 2nd, the 3rd and 4th, 6th and the 7th, 8th and 9th, 10th and 11th, was repeated with 29,978 votes.

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On this issue, the program's producer said, "Although the final rankings including the position X have nothing unusual, we found that there were mistakes in the process of calculating the final number of votes of each person and sending the figures to announce in the broadcast. While verifying the rankings, the producers rounded the voting rate to 2 decimal places, and the number of votes calculated based on this rounded voting rate was sent to the live broadcasting scene.” Despite emphasizing that there was no manipulation in actual rankings, the suspicion of fabricating vote still won’t disappear.

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Eventually, Mnet entrusted the official investigation right to Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on July 26. Mnet gave stance, "We conducted on our own an investigation after the controversy arose and noticed that the truth verification still has some limitations. Therefore, we entrusted the investigation right to the prestigious investigative agency. We will actively coordinate in the investigation, clarifying the truth and taking responsibility for the parts that we need to be responsible. Once again, we would like to send our apology for causing many problems."

Amid this situation, on July 26, the suspicion of fabricating the results of the last season "Produce48" has also arisen on the online community. "Produce48" was criticized that the vote totals of the 20 final ranks were all multiples of 445.2178 rounded to the fourth decimal point, just like the method of "ProduceX101".

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At that time, the vote numbers of 18 trainees, including Jang Won Young - who ranked 1st with 338,366 votes (445,2178 × 760) - and Sakura - who ranked 2nd with 316,105 votes (445,2178 × 710) - are all multiples of this number.

"Produce48" launched the female project group IZone through the competition between Korean trainees and members of the Japanese AKB48 group. Currently, IZone is active in both Korea and Japan, so the investigation direction of the vote manipulation is drawing much attention from fans in the two countries.

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Newsen = Reporter Lee Hana /bliss21@

Photo = Mnet, Online community

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