The 20th General Election will be held on April 13, 2016. Under the Constitution of Republic of Korea, every Korean holds the right to vote as prescribed under law. The State and local government should not discriminate against persons with disabilities in exercising their rights to vote and should provide reasonable accommodation to guarantee their rights.
The Commission, in 2014, recommended to the Chairperson of the National Election Commission to provide customized voting measures for persons with different types of disabilities at the 6th local elections in 2014 to enable persons with disabilities fully exercise their rights to vote and to improve the size of polling both to help persons with disabilities wheelchair to safety and conveniently cast a vote. In addition, the Commission expressed an opinion in April, 2015 that in a bid to practically guarantee the right to vote of persons with mental disabilities residing in facilities, monitoring and supervising has to be strengthened to prevent illegal ballot.
It was confirmed that the NEC is making following efforts in a bid to provide guarantee the right to vote of persons with disabilities at the April 13 general election: providing newly designed polling booth and special assistive equipment to help persons with mental disabilities; requiring candidates to submit campaign bulletin in braille; and providing easy-to-understand brochure for persons with developmental disabilities.
However, despite such effort at the government level, it is true that the right to vote of persons with disabilities is not still fully guaranteed.
For example, for persons with visual impairment, the right to secret ballot is not fully guaranteed, and they cannot check whether they cast the vote to the right person. In addition, lack of elevators at voting places restricts the right to vote of persons with disabilities in wheelchair. As such, there remain concerns to be addressed to fully guarantee the right to vote of persons with disabilities
The Commission would like to urge related authorities to step up their efforts to strengthen the right to vote of persons with disabilities at every election including the April 13 general election.
