‘Onionskin’ envelopes create stir

The names of the presidential candidates printed on a ballot paper are seen through the envelope used for early voting that will take place on Thursday and Friday. / Yonhap

Concerns have risen over possible violations of voting privacy in the ongoing absentee ballot for the Dec. 19 presidential election because of the envelopes used to return the completed voting papers.

Voters complained on Thursday, the first of the two-day absentee ballot, that the return envelopes are glassine and almost translucent. They added anyone, including election officials, can see through them and see which candidate has been chosen on each ballot paper.

Registered absentee voters including soldiers are required to visit a designated polling station in their current residential area. They check their favored candidate from the seven contenders on the ballot paper before putting it inside the return envelope. The National Election Commission (NEC) will sort the envelopes and send them back to each voter’s original residential area for them to be included in the final count on Dec. 19.

A total of 1.08 million voters have registered for the absentee ballot. This is the highest ever in the nation’s presidential election history, including 2007 when 810,755 citizens cast their ballots as absentee voters.

And a number of them have speculated that the NEC was allegedly under pressure from outside groups to use onionskin envelopes. They even cast doubts that some election officials will discard votes for a specific candidate that they do not support, especially either Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party or liberal Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) who are in a tight two-way race.

“I now understand what the NEC meant in achieving ‘transparency’ for this presidential election,” a Daum blogger “Go for your own way” wrote. “The NEC can find out who you voted for, and I’d say we’re living in the age of nonsense.”

Another voter echoed a similar view.

“I simply didn’t know what to say when I found out that I could see through the envelope,” said a Naver blogger “Sky Glass.”

The blogger wrote that he or she phoned the NEC right away and demanded appropriate measures to be taken to prevent possible violation of the voting privacy. According to the voter, the only solution that a NEC official suggested was to fold the ballot paper in half to avoid anyone other than the voter knowing which candidate is marked.

The NEC admitted to making this suggestion, adding that it is the only option at the moment.

“Once you fold the paper, no one other than you will know which candidate is marked on the paper,” an official said. “And it’s okay to put aside any worries that someone can see through an envelope and throws it away if he or she doesn’t like the candidate marked on the paper.”

Some voters still complained, claiming they can still see through the envelope even if they folded the ballot paper.

In an attempt to tackle the problem, the NEC said officials will be present in every polling station to prevent anyone attempting to discard the envelopes. <The Korea Times/Yi Whan-woo>