Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of every democratic society. As fellow South Koreans and electors in the United States, we greatly appreciate the willingness of President-elect Geun-hye Park to integrate the nation by overcoming conflicts and divisions. We also hope that she will make the first step on this mission by listening to the half of South Koreans who were disappointed by the Lee government and thus wished for a regime change. We hereby sign this statement.
As well-noted, there were quite a few issues with the general election on Apr 11th, 2012, including the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack of the Election Administration Committee, the so-called tunnel DDos by Tae-ho Kim, voting by proxy in some facilities for the disabled, and so on. Although the Democrats raised these issues, there was no official investigation carried out by the Lee government, resulting in serious damage of the trust of South Koreans in the government and the Election Administration Committee. In this situation, a lot of questions have been raised regarding the presidential election as well, with as many as 200,000 people (as of the morning on Dec 28th) having signed in the petition for manual counting. As these problems signify a deep doubt about the legitimacy of the upcoming Park government, we request immediate action on the following items for the prevention of split in public opinion and for the stable start of the new regime.
1. To guard and check the use of power of national institutions is a duty and also a right of the people, that is specified in the constitutional law, for which relevant information should be accessible and clear. In fact, Republic of Korea National Election Commission is supposed to be proactive in educating the public even before requests for adequate information. We ask that Republic of Korea National Election Commission present the data of elections for the past 20 years on the voter turnouts and the percentages votes earned per each candidate, region, gender, and age group, in order to resolve repeatedly raised suspicions of election rigging such as “flipped votes”.
2. Republic of Korea National Election Commission has changed the voting stations without sufficient notice. It also has failed to provide adequate information about the reason for changing ballot box materials from metal to paper or plastic and about manual or electronic ballot counting process, although some questions were raised. As a measure to respect South Koreans' right to know and also to preclude additional controversy in the future, Republic of Korea National Election Commission must account for these matters.
3. In An-dong, a cluster of four ballots folded all together at once was found; not a bunch of four ballots which were separately-folded and then happened to sit on top of each other when being dropped in the ballot box. An explanation should be provided.
4. It should also be clarified why different ballot envelopes were used in different precincts and why see-through envelopes were used, allowing a collector to be able to read the ballot inside.
5. Analyses by statisticians and mathematicians should be run regarding the questions on the curves of voter turnout and the votes earned for Mr. Moon and Ms. Park measured over time.
6. The record-high voting rate was 97% on Mar 15th, 1960, when the infamous fraudulent election was held. But people in 50's were reported as the age group which marked 89.9% of voter turnout in this presidential election, which is considerably higher than other age groups. For verification, Republic of Korea National Election Commission should submit the register of the electors, on which who actually voted are marked.
7. Conventionally, a former judge of the Supreme Court has been appointed and selected, having created some debate over his qualification, the chairperson of Republic of Korea National Election Commission. However, Neung-hwan Kim, the head of the organization at the time of the presidential election, was not a judge of the Supreme Court, having created some debate even before the election. In order to settle the charges, the public should be informed on why and how he was appointed.
8. Besides, Public Official Election Act, article 107 was revised on Jun 25th, 2012, for an unclear reason about six months prior to the election, such that the preservation period of the materials of the presidential election, including the ballots, was shortened to one month. Justification for this revision should be presented.
9. Electoral Fraud Act, Act No. 9147 did not even have the extinctive prescription, because the electoral transparency and reliability is the cornerstone of democracy. Nevertheless, to much regret, this law had been abolished in Dec 2008 by the Lee government. Considering that the question itself about the background of such abrogation gives rise to doubt in the trustworthiness of the government, we insist that Electoral Fraud Act, Act No. 9147 be revived, and all the suspicions including those on the 4.11 election, which were listed in the beginning of this statement, should be thoroughly inspected and resolved.
10. Given unusually preval!ent doubts as to this presidential election, we request the consideration to keep all data and the ballots safe and sound even longer than the period specified in Public Official Election Act, article 107, if the Lee government and Miss. Park are confident in the fairness and accuracy of each process of the election. We would like to also plead that the preservation period to be extended by law amendment.
In case the required manual counting has not been performed yet, Geun-hye Park is technically still a 'candidate,' not 'President-elect.' Even if the presidential election should be considered complete, all these questions and suspicions will become an obstacle for her mission of the new era and the new politics. Also, if she dismisses or suppresses people's demand for manual counting or even re-counting, which is their constitutional right, her new government may face a serious resistance. If Miss. Park wants to be recognized as a democratic leader, especially in this time when the world is paying a close attention to South Korea concerned about the possible revival of dictatorship, we propose that she should respect this petition and execute all of the above demands.
Dec XX, 2012
South Korean Electors in the United States
Who Wish for the Transparency of the 18th Presidential Election
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