This study aims to deduce effectiveness by evaluating and analyzing overseas election system. Korean citizens residing foreign countries had been deprived of their political rights, the fundamental right of a citizen, only because they are out of coun...
This study aims to deduce effectiveness by evaluating and analyzing overseas election system. Korean citizens residing foreign countries had been deprived of their political rights, the fundamental right of a citizen, only because they are out of country until 2009 when overseas voting was initiated in accordance with the Constitutional Court’s “Unconformable to「Public Official Election Act」Constitution” decision. In 2012, they exercised their right to vote for the 19th election of members of the National Assembly and the 18th presidential election, for the first time in the constitutional history. Legislation of overseas voting was decision of the judicature, not the National Assembly’s. The new law was enacted, considering concerns of the fairness of the first overseas voting and the uncertainty of election result, based on the fairness of election rather than the convenience of overseas Koreans’ voting.
However, sole suffrage does not complete the voting right of an overseas Korean. A system shall be established for a voter with voting intention to be able to participate in the election without a trouble. The fairness shall be secured during the election process, and an inexpensive but efficient overseas voting administration system shall be prepared. In addition, the overseas Korean society must be motivated to participate in the overseas voting.
As the result of the two major elections in 2012, the voting rate of the 19th overseas election of members of the National Assembly turned out to be 2.53% of presumed number of voters while that of the 18th overseas presidential election was 7.08%. Such rates are obviously low, considering keen interest of Korean citizens in politics and strong homeland-orientation of overseas Korean. Inconvenience of overseas voting system that may block overseas Koreans with voting intention from further election shall be avoided. Even though there had been arguments brought up against overseas voting due to high cost election expense and low voting rate after the 19th overseas election of members of the National Assembly, overseas voting is very crucial to national harmony and the development of national politics, gathering together the minds of Korean citizens scattered all over the world. Therefore, there must be efforts made for further overseas voting to settle down more expansively and stably.
For further overseas voting to be more developmental and stable, the freedom and justice of election shall be well-matched. There shall be no inconvenience in the overseas election system and election administration structure and lack of election information and motivation which will cause political indifference of overseas voters with voting intention. Accordingly, this study proposes an effective reform measure through the institutional․organizational․actor-related factors evaluation and analysis of the results of two major elections in 2012 in the standpoint of new-institutionalism.