 Soldiers from the Ashena unit, a Korean Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan, salute in this file photo. Service men and woman who are stationed overseas are stripped of their voting rights under the current system. / Korea Times file |
By Lee Tae-hoon
Voting is a basic right and an important responsibility that every citizen must have, but there is still a considerable number of people deprived of suffrage, including peace keeping troops stationed abroad.
The country has revived overseas absentee voting but this will not benefit 1,400 troops dispatched in 15 countries, including 336 in Afghanistan and 240 in Haiti due largely to the absence of Korean diplomatic missions near their bases.
Lawmakers have pledged to allow troops abroad to send their ballots by international courier service from their barracks, but there is little sign that they will amend the law any time soon to honor their promise.
Some 10,000 fishermen and sailors far away from Korea will not also be able to take part in today’s elections to select 300 lawmakers. But, they will be allowed to cast a vote via fax for the first time in the upcoming December presidential poll.
As usual, prisoners and those the court has declared to be incompetent, including people in a vegetative state as well as those who have filed for bankruptcy and show no willingness to repay debts, will also be excluded from the electoral rolls.
Those who have been convicted of breaking the Election Law are banned from exercising suffrage for five to 10 years upon completion of their sentence.
Son Ho-young and many other male hallyu stars, who have assumed the role of celebrity diplomats abroad, will not be one of the millions of Koreans who will queue for their chance to select a new parliamentary leader.
Son still remains an American citizen refusing naturalization and not applying for dual citizenship that he repeatedly promised to do so to regain his Korean citizenship.
K-pop singers, such as Tablo, who suffered during a groundless diploma forgery scandal, and Brian of the R&B duo Fly to the Sky, and actors, including Phillip Lee, a star of the hit TV series Secret Garden, are also not Korean nationals.
Many handicapped citizens face great difficulties in exercising their right to vote due to a lack of care.
Im Su-cheol, a manager of the Research Institute of the Differently Abled Person’s Right in Korea, claims that there are at least 52 polling stations in Seoul confirmed inaccessible to physically handicapped people.
He noted that some of the polling stations are not installed on the ground floor and do not have a lift or other methods to allow handicapped people to access.
Im said he found at least eight candidates in Incheon did not provide Braille election materials.
“The voting rights of the disabled are not protected due to the law that allows candidates to choose whether they provide Braille promotional information or not,” she said.
A senior official of the National Election Commission (NEC) explained that many candidates do not bother to produce separate promotional material for visually-impaired citizens as there is no punishment against it and such efforts are time consuming.
Lee Yeon-ju, a chief of the Blind Rehabilitation Center under the Korea Blind Union says that many candidates offer Braille material to the blind and the government pays them back the entire costs incurred in producing them.
“It is difficult to find and compare the pledges that individual candidates have made,” she said, adding that it is very difficult for the blind to get information about the location of polling stations. “I had to make a call myself to the election commission to check where the polling booth is.”
She added the majority of Braille material contain only a portion of information provided in other promotional material, making it difficult for the blind to make a thorough comparison of candidates.
![[INTERVIEW] CIX talks about team chemistry, youth theme](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/64d822b04c8e45059e9e3c1765ccaf54.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
