"It is disheartening to see election enthusiasm abroad cooling down year after year."
Ahead of the constitutional referendum expected to be held alongside the June local elections, voices within the overseas Korean community are already predicting low turnout. For overseas Koreans, this election carries dual significance: it marks the ninth election since voting rights were granted through the 2012 amendment to the Public Official Election Act, and the first constitutional referendum in the nation's constitutional history.
Yet exercising voting rights from distant foreign lands is not as easy as it sounds. Overseas Koreans must go through a separate pre-registration process to participate in voting. Accessibility is another issue. Unlike in Korea, where polling stations are set up in every neighborhood, the Public Official Election Act restricts overseas polling stations to diplomatic missions such as consulates and embassies. As of the last presidential election, overseas polling stations were set up at about 220 locations across 118 countries worldwide. For example, the U.S. state of Texas, which is seven times the size of Korea, has only three polling stations, while Australia, 77 times the size of Korea, has just five. This is why stories of overseas Koreans crossing borders and traveling thousands of kilometers to vote, or even abandoning their livelihoods to reach polling stations, emerge with every election.
The turnout calculation standard applied exclusively to overseas elections also contributes to this reality being overlooked. Elections held in Korea are based on the total eligible voter population, but overseas election turnout is calculated based on those who voluntarily pre-register. The last presidential election recorded a turnout of 79.5 percent, the highest ever for overseas elections, but based on the total eligible voter population, it stands at just 10.4 percent. The result is a statistical illusion that makes turnout appear higher than it actually is. Flipped around, this means overseas Koreans have stronger voting intent than domestic voters (79.4 percent turnout) but face institutional and physical barriers in exercising their voting rights. Among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states, Korea, which only allows in-person voting, ranks at the bottom along with Japan in overseas voter turnout.
Introducing a mail-in voting system has been proposed as a solution, but it has failed to clear the National Assembly for more than a decade due to partisan disagreement. Meanwhile, interest in elections among overseas Koreans, extending to second- and third-generation immigrants, continues to decline. Expanding suffrage guarantees for overseas Koreans is the starting point for preserving their identity and roots as Koreans. Before weighing the political gains and losses of election outcomes, the political establishment should recognize that increasing overseas voter turnout presents a golden opportunity to secure the casting vote of 2.2 million overseas Korean voters hidden behind the statistics. One can only hope that heartbreaking stories of overseas Koreans setting aside their livelihoods to reach polling stations in distant foreign lands will no longer be heard.
