Korea mulls high-security paper ballots

By Choi Kyong-ae

Kim Hwa-dong KOMSCO CEO

The Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) said Monday it will make a greater effort to produce high-security paper ballots to help cut costs and avoid ballot-rigging.

“We are in talks with the National Election Commission (NEC) on the delivery of new forgery-proof paper ballots and we’re discussing production costs with them. But nothing has been decided yet,” a KOMSCO spokesman said.

In Korea, paper ballots used to be produced some time ahead of major elections based on the country’s overall voting population. But some of the ballots were discarded afterwards, wasting taxpayers’ money.

Today, paper ballots are produced by companies designated by the NEC and carry the NEC’s authorized stamp for certification. There have been no major problems in terms of security. But the NEC often comes under speculations that voting results are fabricated.

In fact, Korea has a track record where voting results have been forged to help a certain party candidate, either ruling or opposition, get elected in some districts in the past decades.

“As paper ballots are vulnerable to forgery, there has been a growing demand for on-the-spot production of ballots,” the spokesman said.

Given KOMSCO’s decades-long expertise and know-how in the production of bank notes which require a high standard of security, the NEC reportedly is considering selecting KOMSCO as its partner to provide new high-security paper ballots.

“The NEC and KOMSCO initially talked about the project a year ago but there has been no major development since then,” an NEC spokesman said without elaborating.

If the new paper ballots carry a hidden picture to avoid forgery, the production costs for 30 million of them will increase significantly. So the NEC and KOMSCO are in talks to narrow the gap over costs and other terms, according to local reports.

KOMSCO declined to confirm reports about the cost.

KOMSCO, set up in October 1951 as the sole producer of Korean currency, has developed anti-counterfeiting technology in the field of currency, national identification cards, security products and quality certification of gold bars.

In the January-June period, KOMSCO shifted to a net profit of 840 million won ($716,000) from a net loss of 7 billion won, helped by shareholder gains from its overseas affiliate in Uzbekistan.