Noh Tae-ak, Chairman of the National Election Commission [Photo=Yonhap News]

The National Election Commission (NEC) announced that it would focus on preventing and cracking down on fraudulent absentee voting applications and voter registration for the purpose of voting ahead of the June 3 local elections. However, it has been found that it is difficult to find publicly available statistics on the actual conditions of how the voting rights of vulnerable voters are exercised in reality.  

This raises concerns that the risks are being warned about, but the management situation is not being disclosed.

The problem is that these individuals are no longer peripheral voters outside the system.

No Longer Peripheral

The number of registered voters in the previous 8th National Simultaneous Local Elections was 44,303,449, and the number of registered voters in the population for the analysis of the 22nd National Assembly election turnout was 44,251,919. The upcoming local elections are also likely to be a large-scale election with around 44 million voters.

The Committee for Low Birth Rate and Aged Society estimated the number of elderly dementia patients in Korea aged 65 and over to be approximately 1.24 million as of 2023, with related assets amounting to 154 trillion won (dementia money). In addition, according to reports citing the 'National Mental Health Status Report 2023', the number of recipients of severe mental illness, excluding dementia, was 685,522.

Although the two statistics are based on different compilation systems, their simple sum reaches over 1.92 million people. Based on 44 million people, this is about 4.5%.

The Law Changed First

Furthermore, the law was changed just before this election.

Article 18, Paragraph 1 of the current Public Official Election Act stipulates "deleted" as item 1 of the clause regarding those without voting rights, with the enforcement date of April 22, 2026. The deleted former item 1 was "persons who have been declared incompetent." This change is clearly confirmed by comparing the current and former provisions on legal information sites.

This indicates that the NEC was already aware, by law, that individuals who were previously excluded by default are now included in the voter group for this local election.

To explain the change in the system, the Civil Act was amended in 2011 to transition to the systems of adult guardianship, limited guardianship, and specific guardianship, which took effect on July 1, 2013. This system was implemented in 2018 after a five-year grace period. However, it remained in the Public Official Election Act thereafter and has now been changed.

In response, the NEC stated, "We have been granting voting rights to these individuals even before." This means that voting rights were granted preemptively before the legal amendment.

The National Assembly's explanation is along the same lines. The legislative materials related to the amendment of the Public Official Election Act state that the purpose is to revise the provisions related to the voting and candidacy rights of persons with disabilities, such as deleting "persons who have been declared incompetent" from the scope of those without voting rights.

Ultimately, it can be seen that the issue of "vulnerable voters" not being a peripheral matter in this election was already foreshadowed by the system itself.

Statistics on Actual Conditions are a Blank

Therefore, it is incumbent upon the NEC to first explain how their voting rights are actually exercised.

However, the analysis of voter turnout data for the 8th Local Elections, published by the NEC on the Public Data Portal, is described as "comparative and analytical data by gender, age group, and region," and the analysis data for the 22nd General Elections is also explained as "comparative and analytical data by region, gender, and age group."

According to the public explanation, there are no items that separately show the voting conditions of vulnerable voters, such as whether they have dementia, mental illness, are residing in a facility, vote in person, or distinguish between personal absentee voting and facility absentee voting.

At least, based on the publicly disclosed analysis system, it is difficult to find a structure that separately explains the voting conditions of vulnerable voters in both the 8th Local Elections and the 22nd General Elections.

NEC Cannot Give an Immediate Answer Either

In this regard, the NEC responded to a call from the Hankook Ilbo, saying, "I understand there are no statistics related to that," and "I will check if we have the authority to access personal information."

While the risk of fraudulent absentee voting is warned through official press releases, the NEC could not provide an immediate answer even for the minimum aggregation that would show how the voting rights of vulnerable voters are exercised.

Of course, this does not mean that the NEC should directly examine individuals' sensitive information. However, compared to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which designs the "dementia money policy" based on sensitive and asset information, the NEC's stance of not being able to explain the actual conditions of voting rights guarantee, even in an anonymized aggregated form, is highlighted as a stark contrast.

Only Crackdown, No Explanation

The current Public Official Election Act defines people residing in hospitals, nursing homes, shelters, prisons, and detention centers, and people with severe physical disabilities who are unable to move as subjects for absentee voting.

While the system itself opens up the possibility of voting for vulnerable voters, structurally, there is always room for external assistance to intervene at various stages of application, reception, marking, and return.

In particular, for dementia patients or recipients of severe mental illness outside of facilities, compared to those inside facilities, it is difficult to rule out the possibility of greater reliance on the assistance of those around them, such as family and caregivers.

Despite this, the NEC's statistics do not explain how the voting paths of voters in hospitals or nursing facilities differed from those residing at home, nor their return rates and invalid ballot rates.

The greater problem is that the NEC itself is already aware of the vulnerability in this area.

In a press release on April 21, the NEC announced that it would focus on preventing and cracking down on fraudulent absentee voting applications and voter registration for the purpose of voting to favor a specific candidate. The Public Official Election Act punishes false absentee voting applications as a separate crime.

If the risks are officially warned about, but statistics and an explanatory system to show the actual conditions of guaranteeing voting rights for vulnerable voters cannot be provided, it is difficult to avoid criticism that "there is a crackdown, but no explanation."

The Court Also Ordered Disclosure

The NEC's non-disclosure stance has been judged by the courts in other cases as well.

According to a Seoul Administrative Court ruling obtained by the Hankook Ilbo, the 4th Division of the Seoul Administrative Court partially ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by lawyer Park Joo-hyun seeking to nullify the NEC's refusal of information disclosure, ordering the disclosure of all audit information except for personal details.

The court ruled that even considering the special nature of the NEC as a constitutional body, the grounds for non-disclosure must be strictly interpreted, and that transparency and appropriateness of work can be secured and unnecessary suspicions can be prevented through document disclosure.

While the disclosure of statistics and audit data on the voting conditions of vulnerable voters is a different matter, it is pointed out that it is similar in that the NEC does not voluntarily provide sufficient explanatory materials in areas where public doubts are raised.

The Court Warned of the Risk Zone

The courts have already warned of the risks of the absentee voting process itself.

In a past case where village chiefs arbitrarily marked ballots for absentee voters without their explicit consent, or encouraged them to vote for a specific candidate and then marked the ballots themselves, the Supreme Court ruled that this was not simple assistance but constituted an act of "voting or causing to vote by other fraudulent means" under the Public Official Election Act.

This means that just because the absentee voting system is allowed does not automatically guarantee that the boundaries between actual assistance, guidance, and proxy are maintained.

The issue of trust surrounding mail-in absentee voting for vulnerable voter groups is not a vague imagination; it is an area that the law and precedents have long warned about.

Rights Opened, Management Left Empty

The core issue is not "dementia money." The figures are merely a comparative benchmark showing that the state meticulously quantifies and manages asset issues for vulnerable groups.

The essence is that while the NEC guarantees the voting rights of vulnerable voters, it lacks the minimal statistics and explanatory framework to show how those rights are actually exercised, at which stage assistance is needed, from where the risk of guidance and proxy increases, and the actual conditions.

The fact that the NEC was aware that these individuals are included among the voters in this local election makes this gap read even more heavily.

As long as this gap persists, the absentee voting of vulnerable voters is highly likely to be repeatedly invoked as a backdrop for controversy over trust and allegations of electoral fraud in every election.

This does not mean that mail-in absentee voting itself is illegal. If the NEC recognizes the vulnerability to the extent that it designates fraudulent absentee voting applications as a separate crackdown target, the next step should be disclosure of actual conditions and accountability for explanation.

Simply opening up rights is not enough. If it cannot demonstrate how those rights are being guaranteed, those rights will inevitably return to a blind spot.

※ This article has undergone verification of facts, logic, and source consistency in accordance with the ALO System (patent application).