The National Assembly's Special Committee on Political Reform holds a plenary session on the 26th. [Photo = Yonhap News]

The credibility of elections, the cornerstone of democracy in the Republic of Korea, is on the brink. This is because the National Election Commission (NEC), which should safeguard the fairness of elections, is instead engaging in unscrupulous behavior aimed at legalizing an institutional pathway for fraudulent elections.

On January 26th, the NEC submitted a proposal to the National Assembly's Special Committee on Political Reform, advocating for the legalization of the 'printed seal' on advance voting ballots. This is tantamount to a declaration that they seek legal absolution for an incorrect practice they have maintained in violation of higher laws, rather than correcting it.

The current Public Official Election Act stipulates that election management officials must 'personally stamp' their 'own seal' on the ballot paper 'before' issuing it. The moment the manager's personal seal is physically affixed at the polling station, the ballot becomes a 'regular ballot' guaranteed by the state. The law establishes such a strict principle that any violation is considered an invalid vote. However, the NEC has been forcing 'printing' by creating its own rules under the guise of efficiency. 

Printed sealing exposes a fatal flaw: anyone with a copier can mass-produce counterfeit ballots outside of a polling station. This is because the barcodes on advance voting ballots do not contain numbers, making it difficult to distinguish copied ballots by eye, and electronic counting machines cannot detect duplicate ballots.

The core of the issue lies in the authenticity of the seal. Currently, the NEC obtains consent for production and collection from election managers, produces seals in bulk, distributes them, and then collects them again. This is a 'phantom seal' system that completely absolves the responsible party of accountability. The fundamental problem, more so than whether the sealing method is printed or direct, is whether it is the manager's actual 'personal seal'. 

The phenomenon of numerous identically folded ballots being discovered at counting stations, as if one person had voted multiple times, and bundles of crisp, unfolded ballots are not unrelated to this deficient and dangerous management system.

Furthermore, the current advance voting system, unlike same-day voting, does not leave physical evidence such as paper voter rosters or ballot serial number fragments. It is an 'advance voting system designed to be un-verifiable,' with even its servers never having been properly disclosed for verification. This is why criticism is mounting that the NEC has become the main culprit in disrupting the election system, rather than being a leader in creating a trustworthy system.

It is now time for the National Assembly to respond. Officials, including the NEC chairman and secretary-general, who wield autocratic power while undermining higher laws, should be impeached and held constitutionally accountable. Furthermore, reforms at the level of fundamental dissolution of the organization are necessary.

The solution is clear. The law must mandate that election management officials must bring their 'personal seal or registered seal' and 'personally affix it' at the polling station. The practice of using 'fake seals' collected by the NEC or 'printing' them must be strictly prohibited by law. This is about preventing a voter's ballot from being reduced to a copied piece of paper, and it is the last lifeline to protect our democracy. 

By Wi Geum-sook, Chair of the Freedom and Innovation Special Committee for Election Reform & Doctor of Computer Engineering