KB News Desk
President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday raised the possibility of using mail and electronic ballots for overseas Koreans.
Speaking at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ policy briefing, Lee referred to learning about Brazil’s electronic voting system during his recent overseas trip, saying that concerned agencies failing to ensure that overseas Koreans can cast their ballots was “dereliction of duty.”
The president’s remarks came after Kim Gyeong-hyeop, commissioner of the Overseas Korean Agency, outlined the agency’s plans for the second half of the year, including measures to improve overseas voting.
“People are eager to vote, but the conditions are not ideal,” Lee said. “Either ballots are hundreds of kilometers away, or they need to travel to nearby countries,”
Lee also brought up concerns that electronic voting has raised safety issues and that mail votes depend on the postal infrastructure of each country, asking the agency to come up with response plans.
“We shall not jump to conclusions about e-voting. As for mail votes, it does not make sense to rule it out everywhere because some countries do not have the right postal infrastructure,” Lee said.
Kim responded that mail voting can be first implemented in regions with the right infrastructure, while other measures such as adding more polling stations or adopting electronic voting can be pursued elsewhere.
“The technology for electronic voting, including voter authentication, is already in place,” Kim said.
