By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
Rep. Yoo Ki-june of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) Tuesday submitted to the National Assembly a bill to allow all overseas citizens and sailors to vote in the presidential and general elections.
``If the bill is adopted, approximately 3.16 million overseas residents and 11,000 merchant mariners will be given the right to vote in the 2012 presidential election,'' Yoo said in a statement.
The lawmaker projected an estimated 96.7 billion won will be needed to make the plan work.
Twenty-nine ruling and opposition party lawmakers signed the bill that calls for the revision of the current law governing public office elections.
If the bill is approved, sailors on board deep-sea fishing vessels can fax their ballots to the officials of the local election commission near their home here. Eligible residents outside the country should inform embassies on election day.
Lawmakers reviewed a similar bill in the previous legislature after the Constitutional Court ruled last year that the current law governing the election of public officials was not constitutional as it did not allow residents outside the country to cast a ballot.
The court said the law must be revised by Dec. 31, 2008.
Although both sides agreed on the need for the adoption of absentee voting for overseas citizens, no agreement was made last year as they failed to narrow differences over when to introduce it.
The GNP argued that all eligible voters need to get absentee voting at the same time, while then ruling Uri Party lawmakers said the measure needs to be adopted step by step, not giving all residents abroad the right to vote simultaneously.
As for the chances for the bill to be passed in the legislature, an aide to Yoo told The Korea Times that he thinks it will go smoothly.
``Last year, then ruling Uri Party lawmakers opposed introducing the bill right away because they considered overseas residents as conservatives. They thought allowing them to cast their ballots in the presidential election last December would harm the liberal presidential candidate,'' he observed.
``No elections are to take place this year and the Constitutional Court ruled that the law must be revised, and so the opposition parties have no good reason to oppose it,'' he said.