The Political Fund Act provides various measures to secure the transparency of political funds. When it comes to election expenses, the Election Commissions (ECs) of each electoral district set and publicize the ceiling amount of election expenses, which a candidate shall not spend beyond. After the election is over, candidates or political parties shall submit financial reports to the relevant ECs, which then thoroughly audit them. Candidates and parties are reimbursed their election expenditure based on the EC’s inspection, if they meet certain requirements.

◈ Condition for the reimbursement of election expenses

○ Elections for Proportional representatives of National Assembly and Local Council

→ If at least one candidate is elected from the party’s list, the party gets full reimbursement for the election expenses within the ceiling amount.

○ Other elections including the Presidential election and general election(district), local elections

→ A candidate gets full reimbursement when the person is elected, dies, or gains 15% or more of the total valid vote cast.

→ A candidate will be reimbursed 50% of his/her spending when the person gains more   than 10 % but less than 15 % of the total valid vote cast.

◈ The Inspection Schedule for the Local Elections

  - (Candidates) submitting a financial report to the relevant EC: June 3 ~ 14

  - (ECs) reviewing the reports and setting the priority for the inspection: June 16 ~ 24

  - conducting field investigation: June 26 ~ July 14

  - analyzing the result of investigation: July 15 ~ 24

  - making reimbursement to qualified candidates/ parties: until July 30

All of the EC offices nationwide conducted the investigation for 8,834 financial reports.  About 339.4 billion-won was reimbursed to qualified candidates out of the submitted figure of 428.8 billion won. The different amount between the actual reimbursement and financial reports arises from various reasons including the threshold provision for the reimbursement and other unqualified expenditure such as spending over the ceiling amount or spending for illegal activities.