Overseas voting had not been accepted in Korean constitutional history for a long time. In 2007, however, the Constitutional Court made unconstitutional decision(2004헌마644) against the former Act on Elections for Public Offices, which restricts state administrative voting rights of Koreans residents abroad. As a result, on February 12, 2012, the Act of Elections for public Offices was amended to introduce overseas voting and then overseas voting was first implemented at the 19th general election on April 11, 2012. In this overseas voting, the voter turnout was only 2.53% with 54,456 people of total people having oversea voting rights(2,233,293) having voted. If this low voter turnout stems from systematic flaws(defects) that the current Act on Elections for Public Office has, we shall try to find the flaws thoroughly and then improve appropriately to guarantee political rights actually and widely.
With this cognizance, this research tries to aim at raising public awareness of the importance and meaning of overseas voting by analyzing overseas voting in general. Moreover, it examines and analyzes problems on overseas voting found in the 19th general election and proposes reform recommendations to make this study as a basic data useful to manage overseas voting more reasonably and effectively. Especially, in criminal aspects, it suggests some advices on policy to make this research be helpful to arrange related laws for swift and reasonable judical countermeasures against overseas voting offense.
As already known, Korean Constitutional Court had not accepted overseas voting rights for national security, election expenses, fairness in election and etc. However, the court later demonstrated constitutional justification of overseas voting in that the former Act on Election for Public Office, which denies exercising voting rights of Koreans residents abroad as they cannot register resident even though they are Korean citizen by the Act on Resident Registration, doesn't have any reasonable purpose, so it goes against the article 37 (2) of the constitution, infringing voting right and equal right of Koreans residents abroad as well as deviating from the principle of ageneral election. According to this decision, the amended Act on Elections for Public Offices made National Election Commission for Overseas Voting be founded. It also revised related regulations and made new rules, considering the particularity of overseas voting.
In spite of this effort, however, Korean first overseas voter turnout was come out to be very low as mentioned above. In fact, overseas voting turnout tends to be lower than domestic due to a special property of overseas voting. Under the situation in which oversea voting goes on, however, it is desirable to take measures to raise voter turnout to realize actual political rights of Koreans residents abroad and put an end on argument of high election expense. But interestingly, it is noticeable that there was no slander and false propaganda in overseas voting of the 19th general election, unlike the domestic election offenses. It might seem that this is because people having overseas voting rights don’t need s lander or false p r opaganda a gainst s pecific candidates as they don't have right to elect national district representative. To raise the overseas voter turnout, it first needs some devices to make registration procedure simple. As specific methods, it is of use to permit circuit receipt, agent receipt, internet receipt, fax receipt, mail receipt and etc. In addition, this study scrutinizes possibility of overseas voting system from several aspects as a measure to expand the overseas voting rights. overseas voting system could be a essential method to directly reflect interests of Koreans residents abroad and boost participation of voting.
Lastly, this study suggests some effective measures and alternative to prevent and manage overseas voting offense. In Korea, because the banned types of acts, according to the Act on Elections for Public Offices, are so complicated, it is needed to enhance promotion regarding overseas voting violation. Study of foreign election law and legislation is also to be activated more and training for overseas voting staff needs to be strengthened as well. Above all, it is urgent to arrange regulations on election campaign in the Act on Elections for Public Offices extensively to prevent overseas voting offense effectively and control/punish swiftly when violations occur.