A National Assembly committee approved a bill to give voting rights to 2.4 million Korean nationals living abroad, Thursday.
If the Assembly passes the bill at a full vote, all Korean citizens over the age of 19 who live abroad will be able to take part in presidential and parliamentary elections starting 2012.
The approval by the special committee on political reform calls for changing the current regulations that have been deemed by the court as in conflict with the Constitution.
The measure could have a major impact on Korean politics, and a voting block made up of overseas Korean citizens could wield significant political influence ― especially during closely contested presidential and local elections.
The governing Grand National Party (GNP) had demanded that three million Korean nationals living abroad be given voting rights.
The figure compares with a little more than one million Koreans, mostly short-term overseas visitors, as proposed by the main opposition Democratic Party (DP).
The GNP wanted to extend the voting rights to as many overseas Korean nationals as possible, including long-term overseas residents and even those holding foreign residency permits.
What drives the governing party to cast a wide net and offer voting rights to them is that Koreans living abroad ostensibly have conservative leanings in their political affiliations, Assembly sources said.
It was reported that during the last presidential election in 2007, the vast majority of Koreans in the United States, as well as Korean-Americans, favored President Lee Myung-bak, the conservative GNP candidate.
The liberal DP, however, reportedly wants to extend voting rights only to short-term overseas visitors ― namely students enrolled in overseas universities, workers stationed at overseas branches of domestic corporations or involved in ventures with domestic investors, and government employees engaged in diplomatic services, according to the sources.
Legislative attempts to allow Koreans abroad to vote in elections at home have been drawn out over the past two decades.