The NEC announced that it held a meeting to set up countermeasures for fair management of the Seoul mayoral by-election which will take place on 26^th October with attendance of high-ranking officials of the NEC and Seoul Metropolitan (Seoul-Si) Election Commission.

The NEC gave an instruction to the Seoul-Si Election Commission that it should dispatch the personnel in charge of law-enforcement at an early stage, as it is expected that the competition between political parties and candidates will heat up. That is because the by-election is the last one in the lead up to the National Assembly and presidential election in 2012.

Election commissions plan to take active and strict actions against law violations from an early stage in order to prevent expansion of illegal activities, as they promptly investigate when they find out election law violations and dispatch special investigative teams in case of serious election crimes.

In addition, as election commissions will assign 45 best law-enforcement members at Si or Do regional level and form and run the Election Surveillance Unit of 750 people, they have a plan to take an intensive enforcement activities against: illegal election campaigns of election related groups; spreading false information or libel and malicious propaganda through internet bulletin boards and SNS; election involvement of public servants; distribution of monetary goods and banquet; a false resident registration and false or proxy absentee voting application, etc.

Moreover, election commissions will also focus on prevention of illegal activities, as they actively inform political parties, candidates, civic and social groups of the regulations in advance and promptly respond to inquiries regarding election law violations.

In the meantime, election commissions have decided to conduct various and effective promotion activities tailored to the city of Seoul as a way to boost turnouts including: request for cooperation to public institutions and companies about adjustment of commuting time on the election day; conduction of promotional events to encourage voters to cast their ballots; use of public transportation as a promotional tool such as subways and buses to raise voter turnout; production and posting of street banners and posters, etc.

Add to that, election commissions will post core pledges of candidates on the websites of the NEC and the Seoul-Si Election Commission during the period of election campaigns in order to help voters make a choice of candidates as a part of policy election.

As of 7th September, confirmed districts of by-elections, other than Seoul mayoral by-election, are 10 heads of Gu/Si/Gun, 9 members of province/metropolitan city councils and 13 members of Gu/Si/Gun councils. You can check detailed information on preliminary candidates etc. on the website of the NEC(http://www.nec.go.kr) or contact a nationwide toll free number 1390.