Voting for the next South Korea president is already underway with early and shipboard voting having commenced earlier in the week. South Korea’s democracy is a major facet of what makes South Korea a success story. June 3rd will only be South Korea’s 21st presidential election. While it looked like Lee was going to win in a landslide, the conservative candidates have made some serious headway in the last few weeks. But we entered the polling blackout period, one of the many unique ways South Korea tries to regulate, protect, and promote its elections. Let’s take a look at some facets of Korea elections that make the system unique, as they are laid out in the Public Official Election Act (POEA).
Shipboard Voting
We saw the election kick off with the first votes being cast on board sailing vessels. It is astounding how comprehensive the election laws are in South Korea. The POEA uses several articles to set up guidance around shipboard voting, all for a small fraction of South Koreans Being out to sea poses serious logistical and security challenges for voters. But the creation of voting systems on board over 400 vessels serve as a testament to how committed South Korea is to making sure that anyone who wants to cast a ballot can, regardless of circumstances. According to KBS, over 3000 voters cast their ballots at sea. This is just a drop in the bucket for an election that will see over 44 million people cast their ballots. Yet South Korea takes expensive, complex, and dedicated steps to ensure the people are heard.
23 Days and a Dream – Election Period
Like many democracies, South Korea has limited the campaign periods and set up a slew of laws to ensure that the elections run smoothly and fairly. The election period for the South Korean president is shockingly short, only 23 days long. During this time candidates are out in full force trying to win over voters, but their tools to do so are regulated. If you are accustomed to American elections, this may seem foreign or even undemocratic. However, presidential hopefuls are limited in the amount of ads they can run. Presidential candidates are limited to 1 minute ads that can only be run up to 30 times within the election period. This comes out to just over one TV and one radio advertisement per day, a far stretch from the seemingly perpetual onslaught of American political ads. Limiting the amount of communication that candidates have forces the campaigns to be direct and poignant, only pushing information and narratives that will make the most impact on the election. Limiting the amount of ads to the public goes a long way towards preventing election fatigue amongst the voter base. This limitation on campaign advertisements leads to new creative ways for candidates to get their message across. In 2022, the Asia society covered how the streets of Seoul get transformed during a campaign period, namely in posters and campaign vans.
Campaign Restrictions
The regulations around South Korean elections are heavily geared towards ensuring that elections are free, fair, but not all-consuming. Article 109 of POEA prevents candidates and their parties from campaigning via phones between the hours of 11pm and 6am. This is just a good common sense idea. No campaign should be calling people in the middle of the night. It would stand to reason that a midnight phone call from any candidate would probably harm their campaign more than anything else. A more laissez faire electoral system would solve this issue by letting voters cast their ballots for the candidates that chose not to harass voters. Instead, South Korea has decided to prevent the harassment from occuring in the first place. Voters do not have the chance to be disenfranchised by toxic and constant political advertising, and candidates are forced to use their resources in different ways that would be more impactful. With a limited amount of advertising space candidates have shown a propensity to run more positive policy centered ads about their own campaigns rather than negative attack ads. This is also why you will not see reporting on how each election becomes even more expensive. Campaigns are not incentivized or even allowed to try and advertise 24/7. Candidates will always need funding, but limiting the amount of ad space available does mean that campaigns are not in a funding war. Many U.S. news outlets and analysts look at the spending done in the U.S. Presidential races as a key indicator of success. Regulating the advertising has also been effective in regulating campaign finances. But article 109 also protects candidates and their staff from being threatened or harassed by phone or other means. This is just one of the many ways that elections are governed to ensure that voters and candidates are protected.
Phone calls are not uniquely regulated, interviews and campaign speeches are also regulated in a similar fashion. Campaign interview, speech, or debate can not be held after 11pm in most cases (there are some more restrictive measures that would prevent some speeches from being held at 7pm).
One of the most unique regulations surrounding elections is the use of polling. Opinion polls are prohibited 6 days before an election. Polling so close to election day can pose some serious issues. It is next to impossible to scrutinize or even correct polling within such a short timeframe. This does protect the public from potentially biased or problematic polling. For example, a candidate could try and release polling showing a commanding lead, aimed at disenfranchising opposing voters. A poll showing an insurmountable lead could be released as part of a larger narrative to dissuade voter turnout, as the election would look like it is already decided. But even outside of nefarious forms of polling, it allows the citizens to cast their ballot without worrying their vote will essentially be ignored. South Korea does still use the first-past-the-post voting system, meaning as soon as a candidate wins a majority of the vote they will have won the election. This system essentially silences the votes cast for anyone who did not win, as opposed to a rank choice voting system. This is another example of how South Korea tries to ensure that everyone not only can vote, but feels that their vote truly matters.
In 2022 we saw this come into play with Yoon Suk-yeol winning just 48.6% of the vote, not even making it to the 50% mark. In a situation where an election is decided with less than 1%, every vote has a little extra weight to it. The use of a first-past-the-post system does mean that every vote that did not go to Yoon, essentially got cast aside. While the voting system is not the sole reason for the political polarization, it is certainly not helping it.
Election law in any country becomes exceedingly complicated and this is, by no means, an exhaustive analysis of the Public Official Election Act. Rather than trying to understand the entirety of the South Korean election system, I have attempted to lay out unique aspects of the electoral system that truly show South Korea’s commitment to democratic values, while still protecting both voters and candidates. The South Korean electoral system is not perfect, but the core values and common sense approaches try to ensure that elections are for the good of the people and not a burden on the citizenry it serves.
