No Ballot Boxes in Churches or Temples
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) recommended that the National Election Commission not set up polling stations in religious places as churches or temples, except when there is an inevitable reason, e.g., there is no proper place for voting in the polling district concerned.
On March 19, the NHRCK judged that installing a polling station within a religious place for elections to public posts is likely to infringe on the freedom of religion guaranteed by Article 20 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. This decision was made after a complaint was filed in February 2008 to the effect that installing a polling station within a religious place interferes with the act of voting itself and that doing so should be prohibited.
According to materials by the National Election Commission, during the last presidential election, 1,050 polling stations, or 8.0 % of all 13,178 polling stations nationwide, were set up within religious places.
Article 147, Paragraph 2 of the Public Official Election Act stipulates that a polling station shall be installed in a government agency building, the office of a public organization or group, a local community center, or any other convenient place for voting within the election district concerned. The Act also allows installation of a polling station in a nearby election district if there is no appropriate place within the election district concerned.
The NHRCK fully understands that when the National Election Commission installed polling stations within religious places, it did so in order to serve the public interest, for example, to improve accessibility by the electors, and that it must have faced difficulties in some cases in securing such public facilities as schools.
Considering the following, the NHRCK decided to make the recommendation above:
First, freedom of religion as guaranteed by Article 20 of the Constitution engenders freedom regarding religious activities, which should in turn embrace the freedom from being forced to enter a certain religious place that one does not want to enter for religious reasons. If the polling station is within the meeting/worship place of a certain religion, the electors will have no choice but to enter the place in order to vote. Any voter who adheres to a different religion or no religion and, thus, does not want to enter the place is practically forced to do so. This constitutes an infringement of his or her freedom to religion as upheld by the Constitution.
Second, installing a polling station within a religious place might facilitate the administrative efficiency of the Election Management Committee and serve the public interest by affording greater accessibility to many electors, but risks undermining democracy by causing some electors to unwillingly vote or refuse to vote. Since the use of religious places as polling stations may in effect violate an elector's exercise of his or her voting right, the selection of locations for polling stations requires a more prudent approach. Merely maximizing accessibility by the electorate is not the only important consideration.
