38,000 foreigners eligible to vote in Gyeonggi left in dark

A mailman delivers packages containing material for the June 13 local elections at an apartment block in Seocho-gu, Seoul. / Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

With the quadrennial local elections due on June 13, more than 38,000 foreign residents in Gyeonggi Province have little knowledge about the candidates because the region has neglected to inform non-Koreans about them.

There are 38,542 foreigners eligible to vote in the province ― those who have lived in the country for three years or longer with permanent residency and are registered at local district offices. The Gyeonggi Province Election Committee introduced voting rights for foreigners in 2005.

But the foreigners have no way to know about the candidates because no information material has been translated into other languages.

The provincial election committee has mailed packages containing basic information on how to vote in the seventh local elections. The information for foreigners has been translated into four languages ― but this does not include information about the candidates.

Previously, the committee has arranged election seminars for foreigners to help them understand how to exercise their voting rights. But this has not been done this year.

The foreign population in the province is the second highest after Seoul, which has a foreign population of more than 270,000. But the province recorded the lowest voting rate among the nine provinces in the sixth local elections ― just 12.8 percent. Of 17 cities and provinces nationwide, the province ranked 16th.

The province has had a steady increase in foreign residents eligible to vote, from 632 in 2006 to 1,700 in 2010, and 14,239 in 2014.

This year, 106,068 foreign residents nationwide are eligible to vote in the local elections, the first time the number of eligible foreign voters has topped 100,000. This year's figure is more than double the 48,428 recorded for the 2014 local elections, according to the National Election Commission. They will make up 0.25 percent of the total eligible voters of 42.9 million this year.

Gyeonggi Province has the most foreign residents eligible to vote in Korean cities and provinces. Seoul has the next most foreign voters (37,923), followed by Incheon (7,715), South Chungcheong Province (3,383), South Gyeongsang Province (2,593) and Busan (2,586).

A total of 4,028 officials, including 17 metropolitan mayors and provincial governors, will be chosen in the upcoming elections.