Absentee Voting Repeal Likely

The absentee voting system in temporary residence areas that caused controversy during the October 26 by-elections is expected to be repealed.

A National Election Commission (NEC) official said yesterday, “We decided to conduct absentee voting over two days in the six days before next by-elections are held by setting up polling stations for absentees at electoral districts. We will soon submit a revision of the Public Official Election Law related to the absentee voting to the National Assembly.”

The officials said, “Given that ruling and opposition parties have admitted that the absentee voting system had drawbacks in the recent by-elections, a revised bill on the National Election Law will be able to be passed by this regular National Assembly session at the earliest.”

The official added, “The political sector abused this system by taking advantage of points in which voters can cast their votes in their temporary residence areas through using this system. Given that the results of by-elections can be decided by a margin as small as a few hundred votes or less, we have decided to do away with the system.”

In-Jik Cho cij1999@donga.com