Overseas voters will cast their ballots at overseas polling stations where ballot papers will be prepared and issued for the National Assembly elections in 2012 with the same marking method the people in Korea do.

The NEC announced that it held a commissioners’ meeting on 26^th September and has decided to prepare ballot papers using ballot printers at overseas polling stations and issue them for the National Assembly elections in 2012.

This decision is based on the revision of the Public Official Election Act on 28^th July that the resolution allows persons in charge of overseas polling stations to prepare and issue ballot papers using ballot printers instead of sending ballot papers to overseas voters by international mailing after printing ballots in Korea.

There are various benefits of this decision: addressing the problem regarding delivery delay or delivery failure which can occur in the process of sending ballot papers to overseas voters; boosting convenience for the second or third generation of overseas Koreans who are not good at the Korean language by the marking method of voting; and preventing invalid ballots.

In addition, it is expected to save about 8.4 billion KRW of budget for international mailing of ballot papers, if about 50 percent of overseas voters apply for overseas voters registration on the National Assembly elections in 2012.

It is the first time to use ballot printing machine in the elections for public office, so the machine was thoroughly inspected at overseas diplomatic offices in terms of accuracy and safety with trial tests even before the decision of the NEC was made.   

In the meantime, the NEC said that it decided to establish overseas voting committees from October 14 according to the article 218 of the Public Official Election Act at 158 overseas diplomatic offices for fair management of the National Assembly and presidential elections in 2012.

As of today, the number of overseas voting committees established at a continental level is 45 in Asia, 37 in the Americas, 45 in Europe, 16 in the Middle East, and 15 in Africa.

The overseas voting committee will be comprised of several commissioners including: 1 or 2 appointed by the NEC; 1 recommended by each political party which formed a parliamentary negotiation group; 1 from overseas diplomatic missions (the head or one of his/her staff members who is recommended by the head of missions); and these people will be appointed by the NEC. The chairperson of committee will be selected among commissioners and the person from overseas diplomatic missions cannot be the chairperson.

The NEC has stressed out that it has worked on finding various ways for complete management of overseas voting in 2012 and the election act on the procedures of overseas voting has already been revised, so the NEC will make all-out efforts to make sure that overseas voting will take place without any problem in 2012. In particular, the NEC also said that it has prepared measures on problems revealed through two times of mock overseas voting such as belated return of ballot papers in close cooperation with related agencies.