Gwangju City Election Commission Discusses Key Management Measures for the 21st General Election

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] The Gwangju Metropolitan City Election Commission announced on the 30th that it held the ‘2020 Major Business Plan Dissemination Meeting’ attended by about 70 staff members from the Gwangju City Election Commission and five district election commissions to discuss key management measures for the 21st National Assembly election.

The Gwangju City Election Commission set three major focus tasks for the fair management of the 21st National Assembly election: ▲accurate and perfect implementation of election affairs ▲realization of free and fair elections ▲enhancement of voter participation in elections.

In particular, to prevent confusion in educational settings due to the lowering of the voting age, they will provide case-centered election law guidance materials and conduct ‘visiting election education’ targeting 67 high schools within Gwangju.

They also conducted a mock vote count to prepare efficient vote counting measures in anticipation of manual counting for the proportional representation National Assembly election.

This is because if more than 25 parties participate in the proportional representation election, the ballot paper length prevents the use of ballot sorting machines.

The ballot sorting machine, introduced since the June 13, 2002 local elections, is a mechanical device that classifies and counts ballots as valid/invalid and by candidate. It cannot sort ballots exceeding the maximum length of 34.9 cm (24 parties). The 33.5 cm ballot used in the 20th National Assembly election holds the record for the longest ballot in National Assembly election history.

A Gwangju City Election Commission official said, “We will devote all efforts to providing and promoting election information that meets the public’s expectations to prevent voter confusion caused by the revision of the Public Official Election Act, such as the implementation of the semi-proportional representation system and the lowering of the voting age to 18.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.