The National Election Commission announced on the 7th a measure to separate voters who have been confirmed and quarantined with the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) from ordinary voters on the 9th, the day of the election, by separating the movement route and time zone, but there are still loopholes.
First of all, the issue of handling those who have already been issued ballot papers among confirmed and quarantined persons who visited the polling place to vote in advance on the 5th and returned for reasons such as prolonged waiting time is the key. The 23-year-old Lee (23) waited at the early voting place in Hyoja 4-dong, Wansan-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do on the 5th, and left the polling place without voting at around 6:15 pm. “It was difficult to wait for a long time because I was not feeling well,” said Lee.
Election clerks had to check IDs one by one for confirmed and quarantined persons at the advance polling station, then fill out the ‘Electionary Identification Form’, and then print out the ballot papers. However, at some polling stations, there have been cases in which election clerks collectively removed ID cards and printed out ballot papers in advance due to delays in voting time. At the polling place in Sangil 1-dong, Gangdong-gu, Seoul, a protest occurred by taking ID cards from the queue at once. In the end, the voting failed, but if the ballot paper was printed out following filling out the identity verification form, you cannot participate in the main voting.
Regarding this case, the National Election Commission said, “If only unmarked ballot papers remain, if it can be objectively confirmed to which voter it was issued, we will thoroughly review it and decide how to deal with it.” However, it seems difficult to come up with a way to effectively relieve such damage cases in a situation where even the scale of participation in advance voting by confirmed and quarantined persons is not accurately understood.
In particular, there are concerns that if the number of confirmed and quarantined cases itself increases, the congestion situation similar to the case of early voting may occur once more. Unlike the recent number of new confirmed cases pouring around 200,000 every day and the early voting day was on the weekend, the main voting day is Wednesday, when the number of confirmed cases is increasing on a weekly basis. As a result, the number of confirmed and quarantined people is expected to increase.
Lee Yang-soo, senior spokesperson for the People’s Power Election Response Headquarters, said in a commentary on the same day, “If a situation arises in which the right to vote is robbed just because of identity verification, it is an unprecedented situation in which ‘entry to the voting booth is replaced with the right to vote’.” It is the idea of exposing a lack of preparation to force people to give up early voting and taking away voters’ sacred voting rights at will.”
Reporter Kang Kyung-seok [email protected]
Reporter Lee So-jeong [email protected]
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