Civil Servant Loses Voting Rights Due to Mistake... Dong Office Asks for Understanding, Citing Employee's Youth

Registered Deceased Father-in-Law Instead of Daughter-in-Law on Voter List
Central Election Commission: "Dong Office Mistake... Issue Beyond Our Responsibility"

On the afternoon of the 5th, the second day of early voting for the 20th presidential election, officials wearing protective suits are receiving ballots to be delivered to confirmed and quarantined voters at the Sangmu 1-dong early voting station set up at the Student Education and Culture Center in Seo-gu, Gwangju. The photo is unrelated to specific expressions in the article. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] An incident occurred where a voter was deprived of their voting rights due to being omitted from the voter list because of a civil servant's mistake.

According to a report by Yonhap News on the 8th, Mr. A (45), residing in Guri-si, Gyeonggi Province, recently discovered that the voter list for the 20th presidential election included his father-in-law, who passed away on the 19th of last month, instead of himself.

Upon verification with the local community service center and the Central Election Commission, it was revealed to be a civil servant's error. During the process of checking the voter list, the community service center staff saw the deleted resident registration copy of Mr. A’s father-in-law but failed to confirm the death report. As a result, Mr. A was not included in the voter list, and instead, his deceased father-in-law was granted voting rights.

Having effectively been deprived of his voting rights, Mr. A protested to the Guri City Election Commission and was told that voting was possible with just a resident registration card. He visited an early voting station on the 5th but was unable to vote because the voter list could not be retrieved on site.

Mr. A again requested the community service center and the election commission to allow him to vote on the actual election day, the 9th.

However, the community service center informed him that the voter list had already been finalized and that voting in this presidential election was impossible, and they apologized to Mr. A. The Central Election Commission stated, "This is a mistake by the community service center. It is an issue we cannot take responsibility for," adding, "We do not know about state compensation. A lawsuit for damages should be filed against the community service center employee."

According to the report, the community service center showed an attitude of "let’s quietly move past this" regarding the deprivation of Mr. A’s voting rights. A community service center official reportedly told Mr. A over the phone, "There is nothing we can do. Even if you file an administrative lawsuit, it takes a long time to appoint a lawyer and get a ruling. The staff is young and the salary is low. We hope for your understanding," and added, "We will thoroughly manage our duties in the future to prevent omissions in local elections."

Mr. A appealed to Yonhap News, saying, "I do not want to cause harm to the individual staff member responsible or demand compensation. I want to point out the failure to properly manage the precious vote of the people, and personally, I feel very unfair."

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