In December 2025, the Constitutional Court dismissed a constitutional complaint against the current system that substitutes the direct signature of the election official with printing on advance voting ballots. The dissenting opinion revealed in the Constitutional Court's decision suggests that the practice of substituting the advance election official's signature with printing can no longer be dismissed as a mere administrative convenience. [Photo = Yonhap News]

The controversy over election fraud is solidifying into a structural problem that cannot be resolved by laws and systems. Due to the formation of a wicked election fraud cartel, the channels to investigate and punish election fraud are practically inoperable. 

Those who deny election fraud and label it as a conspiracy theory are either participants in the election fraud cartel or individuals unable to see the essence of election fraud. If spilling 50cc of coffee can cause significant chaos, how horrified and indignant must the citizens be who know that the sovereignty of 50 million people has been destroyed?

Election Fraud: The Collapse of Popular Sovereignty and Democracy

The South Korean electoral system is causing unbearable anger, going beyond distrust. Public opinion manipulation and the distortion of expected outcomes have polluted the soil of voter judgment. 

Even if a majority raises objections about election fraud, forensic analysis of servers and electronic counting machines is not possible. Although deceased voters and elderly phantom voters emerge, access to the integrated voter registry is denied. Even when millions of new ballots are exposed, it's dismissed as a delusion of "memory retention," and ballots for proportional representation are neither inspected nor adjudicated.

Election fraud in South Korea is not an administrative error but a premeditated and systematically executed crime, a violence that reduces citizens from subjects of the state to powerless objects.

President Yoon declared martial law to investigate election fraud, but the election fraud issue has not been resolved and has instead accumulated. Although a large-scale investigation related to the clarification of election fraud has reportedly been launched in the United States, it is uncertain whether it will extend to our election fraud.

Each time election irregularities are raised, the judicial functions and systems responsible for investigating them have failed to operate, and a malicious structure that covers up election fraud and nullifies its legal effect has become entrenched.

As of the Supreme Court's criteria, there were approximately 126 lawsuits challenging the validity of elections filed after the April 15, 2020 general election, but not a single one was upheld. A lawsuit seeking the invalidation of the June 3 presidential election, with over 10,000 voters as plaintiffs, has not yet resulted in a judgment after 180 days. Judicial principles have long been abandoned. 

The Collapse of Popular Sovereignty Begins with the Absence of the Concept of Sovereignty of Life

Although the Constitution of the Republic of Korea declares that sovereignty rests with the people, sovereignty is not realized by declaration alone. Election fraud goes beyond the breakdown of popular sovereignty to infringe upon the human rights and suffrage of individual voters, and even their sovereignty over their own lives, their right to be the master of their own life.

If there is an awareness that the value of life is equal, one cannot commit the heinous act of stealing another's sovereignty.

If there is an awareness that the value of life is equal, one cannot commit the heinous act of stealing another's sovereignty. Election fraud originated from a planned group that believed their lives and power were more special, causing immense waves of anger, yet after 20 years, they remain unpunished.

Sovereignty (主權) refers to the authority of the master of the state, while the sovereignty of life is the awakening that 'I' am the master of my own life. The majority of citizens still perceive life as a gift from their ancestors and parents due to the influence of Confucianism.

When one opens their eyes to the awareness of freedom, 'I' am the master who manages, leads, and ends my own life. Under the influence of Neo-Confucianism, when one perceives their life as belonging to their parents, they cannot immediately resist injustice and irrationality.

This is because they believe they would be burdening their parents who gave them life. This might even be a rationalization of cowardice. If everyone possessed the consciousness of sovereignty over their own life, thousands of movements to resist election fraud would have erupted, risking their lives.

If one awakens to the fact that the sovereignty of life resides in 'me,' and that 'I' am the master of my life, guided by conscience, then one will not cause harm to others.

Without the sovereignty of life, basic principles collapse, and fakes run rampant. If the planners of election fraud had sovereignty over their lives, they would not have thought of deceiving the eyes of the majority for their own power and rule.

Furthermore, they would not be living in constant fear, pursued daily, after becoming accomplices by covering up election fraud despite knowing about it, for their own gain. The karmic retribution for election fraud that destroyed the sovereignty of life of the majority will be remembered for ages as the act of devils. 

Restoring Sovereignty of Life to Normalize Popular Sovereignty

The fundamental reason for the repeated occurrence of election fraud lies not in the breakdown of the electoral system but in the collapse of the consciousness of sovereignty over life. In a society where the absolute consciousness of sovereignty over one's own life, the most precious life, is weakened, the erosion of popular sovereignty becomes structural.

For a long time, our lives and popular sovereignty have been encroached upon by forces planning and cartels of election fraud, and we have been unable to abolish even advance voting and electronic counting machines, which are the channels of evil. We are now living under a more covert and persistent structure of domination than during the Japanese colonial period.

The starting point for restoring popular sovereignty is not in systems and laws, but in the recovery of the consciousness of sovereignty over life. Popular sovereignty can be restored through movements for sovereignty over life that do not remain silent in the face of injustice.

The movement for sovereignty over life is a declaration of awakening to the fact that one is the master of their own life, an expression of conscience, and the courage to act without fear of repercussions. It is a solidarity that acts to prevent passing on the shame of not resisting injustice, despite being certain of election fraud, to future generations.

We must collect and record the mountains of evidence of election fraud, publicly expose the identities of the wicked forces who have usurped sovereignty through manipulation and schemes with resistance movements against election fraud, and punish the injustice of election fraud that has evolved into great evil.

It is difficult to correct the election fraud cartel, which has seized control of laws and the superstructure, through laws and systems. There has never been a case where members of the National Assembly, judges, or prosecutors saved the country. Popular sovereignty cannot be restored through legal clauses.

Sovereignty can only be reclaimed when the consciousness of sovereignty over life, that 'I' am the master of my own life, is revived. Only when election fraud is defined as an infringement of the sovereignty of life and a destruction of democracy, and when we do not remain silent in the face of injustice and participate together, can popular sovereignty finally be normalized.

With President Donald Trump mentioning the South Korean electronic counting machine company, Miru Systems Inc. in Seongnam, it is expected that the issue of election fraud in Korea will be publicly debated within an international context.

Heaven helps those who help themselves. Will you endure the wicked election fraud and suffer the pain of conscience? Or will you restore the sovereignty of life through unified resistance and eliminate the cause of the pain?

We hope that 2026, the year of Byung-o (병오년), will be a historic year in which popular sovereignty is regained through a life-risking movement for sovereignty over life.

Editor, Hankookilbo

◆ Park Pil-gyu, Editor

Editor, Hankookilbo

40th graduating class, Korea Military Academy