Independent candidates fear losing out as voters mark 7 paper ballots

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

National

Sat, December 9, 2023 | 06:43

Election 2022

Independent candidates fear losing out as voters mark 7 paper ballots

Posted : 2022-06-01 11:26

Updated : 2022-06-01 15:23

Seven paper ballots for local elections are seen at an early voting station in Incheon International Airport, May 26. During the June 1 local elections, most voters have to vote on seven ballots, from metropolitan mayors to lower-level council members. Yonhap

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Voters have gone to the polls once again to vote in local elections and National Assembly by-elections on Wednesday, about three months after the presidential election. Unlike the presidential election in which voters marked only one paper ballot to choose the country's leader, this time voters in most of the electoral districts were given seven ballots. Those who live in the eight constituencies where by-elections for Assembly seats were held concurrently had to mark eight ballot papers.

A handful of colorful ballots could cause confusion as voters have to choose candidates for city councils as well as education superintendents. Voters being requested to mark seven or eight different ballot papers to select their favorite candidates could give some disadvantage to independent candidates and lower-level council heads and members who get less attention.

During the early voting, voters were given all seven ballots at once, but on the day of the election, voting was divided into two stages. Voters first received three paper ballots for metropolitan mayors or governors, municipal heads and education superintendents, which they filled in and turned in.

After that, four more ballots for metropolitan or provincial councilors, municipal councilors and proportional representatives for each council were distributed to the voters who once again had to enter the polling booth.

The number of paper ballots may vary by constituency as some candidates run unopposed and a total of 494 posts are already elected without a vote.

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With such complexity, voters tend to pick all the candidates from the same party without knowing each candidate very well, which could disadvantage candidates from the minor parties.

"When I received seven ballots, I was a bit baffled and had to organize them before marking them. I also had to pay extra attention not to smear each ballot," a Seoul voter surnamed Kim said of his early voting experience. A more complex problem came after as he could not figure out all the seven candidates.

"I know about the Seoul mayoral candidates and their pledges, but do not know much about the candidates for the local council. The only information I could get was their election flyer and I just voted for the candidate from the same party as the mayoral candidate I picked," Kim said.

More confusing was the ballot for superintendent of education. According to the current Election Act, superintendent candidates should not be registered with a political party for a year ahead of candidate registration due to the need for political neutrality.

Thus there are no numbers assigned to each candidate and the ballot is in a horizontal format, unlike other ballots, to disassociate the order of the candidates with political parties.

However, many superintendent candidates use certain colors that hint at their political party affiliations in election posters and during election campaigns. For example, in the election for superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, three candidates used red in their campaign materials, while one used blue and another used green.

Experts are calling for an overhaul of the local election system to raise awareness on local autonomy.

During a forum on autonomy and decentralization hosted in March by the Governance Center, Gyeonggi Province councilor Kim Kyung-hee said the current local election system forces voters to pick the candidates from the same party on all ballots.

"We cannot blame the voters for their indifference in local elections. The current system provides too many ballots and too much information at once to the voters. I try to campaign whenever possible, but have feelings of doubt," Kim said.

Lee Gwang-jae, secretary general of the Korea Manifesto Center, said Korea is the only country in the world that holds nationwide local elections to choose mayors and local council members together.

"For instance, in Europe, each region holds elections in a different cycle, so voters do not have to go through hundreds of pages of election flyers at once. Korea should consider changing the cycle of local elections," Lee said.

meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr