A Commission-Run Apartment Election

On Saturday, January 27, despite the chilly and snowy weather, mothers with children in tow, elderly people in their 70s, and white-collar workers trailed into the lunch room at Sinchon Elementary School in Sinbang-dong, Cheonan-si, South Chungcheong Province.

The residents of Chowon Apartment Complex (4,168 residences, 20,000 residents) were voting to elect 20 apartment representatives in the first apartment election supervised by the election commission.

The election was conducted via touch-screen method, where voters selected candidates from a screen where candidates’ pictures, names, and numbers were given.

The Cheonan Election Commission completed the counting of the ballots five minutes after the election closed at 7:00 p.m. and issued certificates of election to the 20 representatives-elect of the 16 buildings in the apartment complex (two representatives were elected for the four buildings with a large number of residences).

The apartment office paid 14 million won to the election commission for supervision.

Why the Election Commission had to intervene –

The supervision of the election by the election commission was due to the ruling of the Cheonan chapter of the Daejeon District Court last June.

In an apartment representative lawsuit (Resident Representative Status Verification Suit) filed by apartment resident A against representative B, the court ruled, “The representatives should be elected by an election supervised by the election commission.” Because a discord among residents regarding apartment representative elections had been ongoing for years, the court had judged that even if a ruling was made, people would not easily submit.

The residents of Chowon Apartments had been divided into three groups regarding issues such as building repair funds and weekend markets, and had been in conflict since late 2002, with many lawsuits following.

Despite the ruling of the court, residents had disputed the commissioning of the election until they recently submitted an election commission request that 3,000 residents signed. A person directly concerned with the suit and the representative-elect of building 116, Mr. Yoon Choon-gi (34, self-employed), said, “The both sides of the lawsuit were elected together as representatives. Although we will have some disagreements in the future, at least there won’t be any exhausting questioning of the issue of representation.”

An Apartment representative election that put public elections to shame–

Since there are no past instances of apartment representative elections supervised by the election commission, the commission applied the same standards as it did to local elections.

Posters and official bulletins with candidate introductions and pledges submitted by the candidates were put up on apartment bulletin boards and sent to individual households. However, to prevent wasteful expenditures, A4-size paper of low quality was used for the posters and bulletins.

The age limit for voters and candidates was set at 19 years of age. Among the elected in this election, a graduating college student was included.

Before the election, the election commission hosted a “clean election pledge rally” and worked to generate interest regarding the election. Banners were put up all over the apartment complex, with slogans such as, “The future and development of Chowon Apartments are up to your vote.” Considering the fact that no separate opinion conferences were held, unlike general elections, visiting individual residences and using sashes and handouts were permitted.

Supervisor Jin Jung-rok of the Cheonan Election Commission said, “Since conflicts regarding apartment representatives is not limited to Chowon, supervision of apartment representative elections by the election commission is likely to spread nation-wide. Although it will mean more work for us, I hope it will be a chance to help the fundamental rules of democracy to take root in our daily lives.”

mhjee@donga.com