By Chung Min-uck
Voting is going mobile. Liberals have adopted the new method to attract voters who are willing to cast their ballots but hesitant to show up at polling stations.
By using only their thumb, voters can easily register and vote for their favorite candidate to run in the National Assembly elections slated for April 11.
Liberals anticipate voting by mobile phone, which is cheaper and easier to do, will prompt what they call “a thumb-driven revolution.”
But it turns out that their expectations were too rosy as the worst-case scenario of voting irregularities became a reality.
Apparently greedy, unethical politicians are behind the problems.
Several sitting lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) allegedly abused the innovative voting system.
Some legislators have their campaign workers recruit people to vote in the candidate selection process. Many of the campaigners registered illegally on behalf of the people they recruited.
Last month, a volunteer campaigner for a potential parliamentary candidate of the DUP jumped to his death in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
He committed suicide while taking investigation for conducting proxy registration to help the candidate earn a DUP ticket to run in the April 11 National Assembly elections.
Since then, there have been flurry of reports and investigations into similar cases in the party’s race.
The DUP, although it recognized the seriousness of the possible side effects, has been pushing ahead with the mobile voting system.
Since the party earlier allowed voter registration and voting by mobile phone, approximately one million people registered for the party’s selection process.
More than 70 percent of them will likely vote through their mobile phones. The mobile voting started Tuesday in 26 out of 246 electoral districts for a two-day run.
Experts agree on the merits of a mobile voting system. They point to a higher voter turnout and above all lower costs and less time consumption as the advantages.
However, they worry about the risks in terms of election requirements.
The new method can violate the four basic principles in elections’ universality, directness, secrecy and equality.
Shin Yul, a professor of political science at Myongji University in Seoul, claims that it is against three of the four basic rules.
“(The mobile method) can seriously violate the principle of universal, direct and secret elections,” said Shin.
“As you can see in the case of the DUP’s competition to select a candidate in Gwangju, there are high chances for proxy voting. And it is against the rule of equality in the case of senior citizens or those who cannot afford to have a smartphone. Voting cannot be kept secret as individuals can be easily swayed by mobilizing powers.”
In the DUP’s previous election to choose its leadership in January, more than half of those who registered for mobile voting were in their 20s and 30s. Most of the elderly chose to cast their ballots at polling stations.
Some say mobile voting is not suitable for Korea given its unique political landscape.
“In a country like Korea where there is fierce competition to win and deep-rooted regionalism, the system can be easily misused as the election watchdog cannot oversee the voting process done by each individual’s mobile phones,” said Hyun Taek-su, professor of sociology at Korea University in Seoul.
The National Election Commission is currently cracking down on cases of traditional illegalities such as fraud and the illicit mobilization of voters. It has remained idle over problems in relation to mobile voting.
As for the possibility of an expanded use of mobile phones in voting, experts are negative.
“The question is how to remedy the shortcomings of the method. But there are no remedies for it. In this regard, the mobile voting system is impossible to use,” said Shin.
“There are just too many risks in the system.”
According to the professor, Switzerland once adopted mobile voting in some of its administrative districts from 2004 to 2006. Yet since then, no further discussion has been held on implementing it on a national level.
“The system will be used only for limited cases for now,” said Hyun. “It will not be used in national elections.”
The DUP has been pushing for mobile voting in the upcoming parliamentary elections by revising the election law but has failed due to opposition from the ruling Saenuri Party.
“The mobile voting system the DUP is pursuing destroys the fundamentals of democracy,” said Rep. Park Geun-hye, head of the Saenuri Party’s interim leadership committee. “The prosecutor’s office must investigate the entire process of the DUP’s recruitment of mobile voters.”
The tragic suicide in Gwangju is construed as a combination of two fundamental problems — public polls conducted in a relatively small area and voting through mobile phones.
Shin explains that it is hard to mobilize voters in favor of a certain candidate if the election is conducted on a national level.
However unlike nationwide election, in a local election campaigners can secure votes if they mobilize as many people as possible where receiving support from a limited number of voters is crucial in winning the race.
Additionally, mobile phone use in both voter registration and the actual casting of ballots worsens the existing problems related to the mobilization of people.
Some say the incident in Gwangju is only a prelude to bigger problems to come in the future.
“The party says the mobile voting system can enhance the development of grassroots democracy and eradicate past misdeeds in elections,” a candidate running in the parliamentary election on the DUP ticket said on condition of anonymity. “But I doubt it.”
In the end, he said, it is all about how many voters candidates mobilize who will vote for them.
“It is the same old competition as the past but in a more excessive way,” he said.
Despite worries in and outside the party, the DUP showed no sign of backing down from its innitial stance on voting by mobile phone.
“The system has become our brand. Therefore it is difficult for us to scrap it. The incident in the recruitment of voters is now over,” said DUPspokesman Shin Kyung-min. “There will also be a problem in the actual voting process. We are looking for a way to prevent such problems from happening.”