To What Extent Was the Right to Vote Guaranteed?

“Asking Jang Hye-young About Politics” Series: Reconsidering Suffrage After the June 3 Local Elections

By Jang Hye-young

Published: July 8, 2026

Translated by Se-young Kim

Question: Observing the series of events that arose following the June 3 simultaneous nationwide local elections due to the ballot shortage, I became interested in political rights. To what extent was suffrage, the right to vote, being guaranteed in our society?

Jang Hye-young: Following the June 3 local elections, which many predicted would end in an eventless fashion with a landslide victory for the ruling party, the issue of "suffrage" became a hot topic in our society. Absurd situations of ballot shortages occurred in various locations across the country, centering around Seoul, and people started to gather at Olympic Park in the Jamsil area of ​​Seoul, where many such incidents occurred. This marked the beginning of the Olympic Park Protests—abbreviated as the "Ol-gong Protests"—demanding a so-called "re-election" while condemning the National Election Commission's infringement of suffrage. The protests have continued to this day, approximately a month after the June 3 local elections concluded.

However, the nature of the protests is changing significantly from the early days when the focus was solely on demanding a re-election. First, slogans such as "re-election due to election fraud" and "manual counting of ballots on election day" have taken hold. Going beyond merely appealing for the restoration of one's infringed voting rights, protesters are engaging in behaviors that cannot possibly be viewed as grounded in the fundamental values ​​of democracy. These include privately censoring other citizens, obstructing athletes from entering stadiums or taking out necessary equipment, and insulting or pressuring police officers monitoring the protest sites.

The “Ol-gong Protest” is an event that touches upon various topics concerning politics and democracy, ranging from the incompetence and irresponsibility of the National Election Commission that directly triggered it, to the tension between the techniques of the rule of law and the fundamental political demands of citizens. However, in this article today, I intend to examine the topic about which the questioner asked—namely, how properly, among the political rights, the right to vote is guaranteed in our society.

 

Suffrage, the First Right that Comes to Mind When Thinking of Political Rights 

Suffrage—simply put, the “right to vote”—is the leading representative of political rights. Many people immediately think of suffrage when they hear the term “political rights.” Article 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea declares that “all citizens shall have the right to vote as prescribed by law,” and Article 15 of the Public Official Election Act, the suffrage provision, specifies that citizens aged 18 or older have the right to vote.

According to the National Archives, the May 10 General Election of 1948, the first election in Korea, was already based on the four principles of universality, equality, secrecy, and direct voting, in accordance with the laws established by the U.S. Military Government. The right to vote was granted to all citizens who had reached the age of 21. As a latecomer to democracy, Korea effectively started with universal suffrage granted to all citizens immediately after the establishment of its government. This can be considered a valuable political asset inherited from democrats of different nationalities around the world who fought with blood and sweat to achieve democracy and non-discriminatory universal suffrage.

However, while the right to vote is the leading representative of political rights, it is not the only one. In addition to the right to vote, the right to run for office—the right to be elected—is also a representative political right. Both of these rights are forms of indirect political participation that function within representative democracy. There is also a form of direct suffrage, namely the ‘national referendum.’ Our Constitution mandates that when amending the Constitution, a national referendum must be held to gauge approval or disapproval within 30 days of the National Assembly’s resolution. Furthermore, direct suffrage systems that are frequently discussed but have not yet been introduced domestically include the “citizen initiative system” and the “citizen recall system.”

The citizen initiative system is a mechanism, comparable to a resident initiative ordinance in local governments, that allows citizens to directly propose legislation without the need for proxy politicians. The citizen recall system is a mechanism that enables elected officials to be removed from office during their term with the consent of a certain number of citizens. While examining various suffrage systems is quite interesting, today's theme is the right to vote, so I will stop here for now.

 

Universal Suffrage Granted Immediately After the Establishment of the Government: What is the Discrepancy between Form and Substance?

As I mentioned, since the establishment of the government, universal suffrage has been granted in principle to all citizens above a certain age, with the exception of cases such as collaborators with the Japanese. (The provision depriving collaborators of their voting rights was later abolished.) Therefore, we must examine to what extent these nominally equal voting rights are actually guaranteed to all citizens in practice.

In an ideal election, everyone eligible to vote would participate, resulting in a 100% voter turnout. However, according to the 2024 OECD report, the average voter turnout for general elections in OECD countries is approximately 65%, while South Korea stands slightly higher at 67%. What was it like in the past? Did it start low and gradually rise?

Voter turnout for National Assembly elections from 1948 to 2024. (Source: National Election Commission, "Analysis of National Assembly Election Voter Turnout")

The election with the highest voter turnout in the history of National Assembly elections was the first election in 1948, which reached a staggering 95.5%. Voter turnout above 90% rapidly dropped to the 70% range after the 1960 general election, briefly surged to 84.6% in 1985, and then followed a steady downward trend from 1987 until 2000. In the 2000 general election, voter turnout was recorded at 57.2%, reaching the 50% range for the first time.

The general election with the lowest voter turnout in history was the 2008 election, with a turnout of 46.1%. This is nearly half the turnout of the 1948 general election. Experts attribute this low turnout to political distrust, stemming from the sentiment that "it doesn't matter who I vote for; they're all the same." They argue that voters' expectations for politics significantly diminished as the political landscape continued to be characterized by an inability to present a vision for the future and by factional infighting within major parties over nominations. In other words, many voters could exercise their right to vote but rather chose not to due to disappointment. Fortunately, voter turnout has been on a steady upward trend since hitting rock bottom then. Among the various factors contributing to this rebound, the introduction of the early voting system is commonly cited.

Korea's early voting system was first introduced nationwide in the 6th Nationwide Simultaneous Local Elections in 2014. In that year's elections, the early voting turnout was approximately 11.5%, approaching 20.2% of the total voter turnout. Although there have been fluctuations with each election, the early voting turnout for the 22nd General Election, 12 years later, reached a remarkable 31.3%, accounting for nearly half of the total votes. The early voting system, which allows voters to cast their ballots at any designated polling station nationwide and effectively extends the election period to three days by including a weekday and a Saturday, has significantly improved the convenience of voting.

The absentee voting process prior to the introduction of early voting was much more complicated. Voters had to register as absentees in advance, receive their ballots via registered mail, and visit a polling station at the city, county, or district level—rather than at the town or village level—to cast their vote. As these temporal and spatial constraints were lifted, countless citizens were able to exercise their right to vote more conveniently. It is truly ironic that the early voting system, which has expanded the guarantee of suffrage in such ways, has recently become the subject of conspiracy theories claiming that it infringes upon citizens' right to vote.

 

Violation of Suffrage of Persons with Disabilities by Public Authority That Continues into the 21st Century

Another way to gauge the gap between the form and substance of universal suffrage is to examine discrimination. During my time as a member of the National Assembly, there was a press conference I attended without fail whenever election season approached. It was a press conference demanding the proper guarantee of voting rights for people with disabilities.

In April 2020, a picket protest was held at Cheonggye Stream in Seoul for the guarantee of voting rights for people with developmental disabilities. (Source: People First Seoul Center)

Recently, there has been a strong call to guarantee the voting rights of people with developmental disabilities. Just as Braille ballots are provided to the visually impaired, there are calls to create picture voting aids featuring candidates' photos and easy-to-understand campaign materials for those with developmental disabilities. These demands also include a request to permit voting assistance for people with developmental disabilities as stipulated in the Public Official Election Act. What does this mean?

Article 157, Paragraph 6 of the Public Official Election Act states that “a voter who is unable to mark their ballot due to a visual or physical disability may be accompanied by a family member or two persons designated by the voter to assist in voting.” Surprisingly, the National Election Commission interprets this provision as narrowly as possible, prohibiting voting assistance for individuals with developmental disabilities as a general rule and allowing it only as an exception in cases where hands tremble or physical coordination is impaired. As a result, in every election season, disputes arise at polling stations between election officials and individuals with developmental disabilities accompanied by support staff. Election officials repeatedly ask about hand trembling, force the disabled individual to enter the voting booth alone by claiming that social workers or personal assistants who are not family members are not eligible to provide assistance, or arbitrarily allow an unfamiliar official to assist the voting process. Simply put, the availability and method of voting assistance are determined by the benevolence of the election officials.

As such incidents continued to recur, individuals with developmental disabilities recently filed discrimination relief lawsuits against the state in Seoul and Busan and won in both the first and second trials. In its ruling, the appellate court recommended that the National Election Commission include provisions in its election guidelines allowing individuals with mental disabilities to receive voting assistance if they face psychological or social difficulties; however, the National Election Commission ignored this recommendation and appealed. Not only the courts but also the National Human Rights Commission of Korea issued specific corrective recommendations ahead of the June 3 local elections, aiming to guarantee the voting rights of individuals with developmental disabilities. However, the National Election Commission expressed an attitude of accepting the recommendation only formally, and ultimately failed to implement it. Individuals with developmental disabilities are currently collecting instances of discrimination regarding voting assistance experienced during these local elections online.

These cases are merely the tip of the iceberg. Visually impaired voters did not receive Braille voting aids in the recent local elections. When asked for the reason, an official from the National Election Commission reportedly replied that aids are not provided for local elections because they are more complex than presidential or general elections, involving as many as seven ballot papers. It is truly absurd that measures to guarantee the voting rights of the visually impaired can be arbitrarily omitted in this manner. If the president and the majority of the country's National Assembly members had disabilities, or if the chair of the commission had a developmental or visual disability, would the commission have given the same answer? Now that the structural incompetence and dereliction of duty of the National Election Commission are being revealed one after another through the parliamentary investigation, effective reforms are urgently needed to guarantee the voting rights of all citizens as stipulated in the Constitution.

A scene from the press conference held in front of the National Election Commission on May 19, 2020, titled “The NEC Must Take Responsibility for the Recurrent Exasperating Infringement of Voting Rights of the Disabled During Every Election” (Source: People First Seoul Center)  

Going Beyond the “Right to Mark a Ballot at the Polling Station” to the Right to Vote as the “Right to Vote for the Candidate of One’s Choice”

I would like to raise one more point. Even if we rectify all the arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on the exercise of voting rights cited earlier through the reform of the National Election Commission, can we truly say that our right to vote is fully guaranteed as a political right? Does the right to vote merely mean the physical right to mark a ballot at a polling station and place it in the ballot box without any external pressure? Considering our current political climate, where some people’s votes are nonchalantly treated as "wasted ballots" before and after voting—even if one was able to mark their ballot safely at the polling station—I cannot help but question whether the right to vote as the "right to vote freely for the candidate whom one chooses" is being guaranteed properly. 

Voting should not be limited to a mere physical act, but should become a substantive process that reflects the political will of the participating citizens to the fullest extent. However, our current system of plurality voting without a runoff election reflects the political will of citizens minimally, rather than maximally. Simply put, the votes of those who did not support the winning candidate are treated as meaningless "wasted votes." Unless the winner secures a majority of the votes, the member of the National Assembly representing a region is effectively determined by the will of a minority of residents rather than the majority.

Various voting systems are being implemented around the world to ensure that no citizen's vote is treated as a 'wasted vote' but is fully included. These include the full proportional representation system, where all members of a national assembly are elected through proportional representation; and the preferential voting system, where voters directly choose their preferred candidates rather than simply selecting a party, where the candidate list is determined by the party...

 

For a Discussion on Political Rights Moving Beyond “My Rights” to “the Rights of All”

I am curious to know how you felt about the fact that so much can be discussed regarding voting rights alone among various political rights. In democratic politics, contemplating political rights inevitably involves moving beyond "my rights" to contemplating "the rights of all." This is because, in a democratic republic where citizens govern themselves—transcending theocracy and monarchy—the rights granted to all citizens are equal. If we can expand our anger over "my violated rights" to anger over "violated rights of the vulnerable around me," the discussion on political rights in our society could truly become richer.

 

About the Author: Jang Hye-young represented the Justice Party in the 21st National Assembly. She is the director of the documentary Grown Up and the author of the book of the same name. She currently serves as the Regional Chairperson of the Justice Party Mapo-gu Committee and the representative of the non-profit organization ‘Mangwonjeongx’.

 

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Original article: https://www.ildaro.com/10495