Civil Organizations Defy Election Commission’s Admonition

A controversy is being stirred as human rights and social movement organizations have decided to insert political requests in ballots into ballot boxes during the April 15 general elections.

The “Network for Achieving Rights of People’s Proposal and People’s Summoning,” composed of seven human rights and social movement organizations, said on April 13 that they would put slips of paper with diverse political requests including the introduction of rights of people’s proposal and people’s summoning, withdrawal of sending troops to Iraq, employment for young job seekers and others into the ballot box during the vote.

The network hatched the scheme to launch a campaign to put the slips saying “we request rights of people’s proposal” in ballots into ballot box on the 29th of last month.

As questions concerning election law violations or invalid voting came in succession, the network sent a public inquiry letter to the National Election Commission on April 1, and the commission sent a reply on April 7 saying, “Putting alien substances except a ballot into a ballot box will block voting and ballot counting, and also may have an influence on the election, so that kind of act will become the focus of crackdown and restraint.”

The network, however, disputed this claim, saying that it is not a violation of the election law because there were no rules about putting alien substances into the ballot box, saying “Our campaign is not for affecting the election result, but for advocating democratic requests that the lawmakers don’t consider.”

On the website of the network (democracy.or.kr), a message is posted dated April 13 saying “even though you insert your slip into the ballot ticket, it is impossible for you to be disciplined because of the secret ballot.”

So the commission had requested relevant organizations to stop this campaign on April 13. If they push ahead, the commission intends to restrain this act on the spot and take stern measures.

The commission reiterated that no alien substances must be put into the ballot box except for ballots, saying, “This kind of act violates the election law as it may disturb voting order and affect the election result under some circumstances.”

According to the election law, the act of interference, and blocking voting and ballot counting is an offense that calls for up to three years in prison.

Yi-Young Cho lycho@donga.com