Election fervor overcomes chilly weather

An elderly woman in a wheelchair queues up to vote for the presidential election at a polling station set up in Banwon Elementary School in southern Seoul, Wednesday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Kim Rahn

People rapped up against the cold headed for polling stations Wednesday to select the next president. Though it was chilly, this was not enough to prevent them from exercising their civic right.

Voting was held without major troubles at 13,542 polling stations across the nation, with some people willingly enduring inconvenience to travel to stations located far away from home.

Some 20 residents of Guleop Island in Incheon headed for Deokjeok Island, about 30 minutes away, on a ferry which the county office prepared, because no polling station was set up on Guleop due to the small number of people living there.

“Those residents included three people in their 80s. Some got seasick because the seas were a little rough,” the village chief said.

At a polling station in Dongjak, Seoul, 105-year-old Kwon Yeong-hwa cast her ballot sitting in a wheelchair. “I’m in a wheelchair, but I’ve always voted in all elections. I can’t understand why many young people don’t participate,” she said.

Lee Gwang-ho, a visually-impaired man, voted at a polling station in Myeong-dong, central Seoul.

He got a Braille ballot card, but complained saying, “The space for the stamp on the Braille paper is so small and it’s hard for me to find the right space for the candidate I want to pick. I complained about this to the National Election Commission for several times, but they did not listen to my complaint.”

Three former sex slaves during World War II cast their ballots in the morning. In their 80s and 90s, they were taken to a polling station by members of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.

After the vote, they had a photograph taken together in front of the polling station and left to participate in the regular Wednesday rally in front of the Japanese Embassy at noon.

At a community center in Euiseong, North Gyeongsang Province, a safe, in which some 4,100 ballot papers were kept, had a malfunction and could not be opened.

Election officials brought in an excavator and smashed it open. The voting started about 30 minutes later than the official opening time of 6 a.m. “The safe used to work well but suddenly malfunctioned. We were very embarrassed,” an official of the community center said.

In Sejong City, the new administrative town, only two polling stations were set up, while there were 10,157 voters. They had to wait for up to two hours in the cold before casting ballots, standing in a 500-meter queue. Some gave up and went home.

In front of a polling station in Samcheong-dong in Seoul, 35-year-old Kim Seon-jin camped out from the previous night in the freezing cold to become the first person to cast a ballot.

Kim, who stayed there since 1:30 a.m. with a rubber mat, a sleeping bag and a heater, said, “In many elections, elderly people come to vote in the morning but young people come later or even don’t vote. I came this early to give a good example to young generation.”