A ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections — which left some voters unable to cast their ballots and turned away — has sparked collective action among university students nationwide. On Wednesday, the June 10 Democracy Movement anniversary, student councils at major universities across the country announced they would issue a joint statement condemning the shortage and take coordinated action.
Student councils from 18 universities are participating in the declaration. Students plan to call for reform of the National Election Commission, a full investigation through a parliamentary investigation and special prosecutor, punishment of those responsible, and the establishment of meaningful remedies for affected voters.
Hwang In-seo, emergency committee chair of the Yonsei University student council, said he hoped students could contribute to the advancement of representative democracy by speaking out, just as students championed voting rights more than 30 years ago. "Yonsei students are showing their determination to condemn this through their participation in the joint action," he said.
The Kyung Hee University student council said students who took to the streets in June 1987 left behind the lesson that democracy must be defended through action, not silence. "We will not stay silent in the face of this crisis caused by the election commission's incompetence," it said.
The Hanyang University student council called the incident not a simple mistake but a problem that has shaken public trust in representative democracy and the electoral system. "We ask again whether the democracy called for during the June Democracy Movement is actually functioning," it said. Sungkyunkwan University's student council said it was joining the nationwide declaration in solidarity with students across the country, "seeking to advance toward a democratic society grounded in trust, as representatives of youth."
According to the "Record of One Vote" website, which has been documenting university responses to the ballot shortage, student self-governing bodies at 186 universities nationwide had issued condemnation statements as of Wednesday, urging authorities to act.
The National Association of University Student Councils, an alliance of more than 100 university student councils, said in a statement issued June 5 that it was "a grave dereliction of duty and a challenge to popular sovereignty" for a constitutional body responsible for administering elections to fail to fully guarantee every citizen's vote. "This amounts to the theft of suffrage that the people have fought hard to protect," it said.
As anger among young people mounted, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok held a meeting with university students on June 7, sitting down with current and former student council representatives to discuss the ballot shortage. The representatives urged the government to pursue a full investigation "from the standpoint of defending democracy, beyond partisan logic, given that citizens' right to vote has been violated."
Meanwhile, protests centered on voters in their 20s and 30s have continued for six consecutive days since June 4 at Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, where a vote-counting center was set up. While some young people have called for keeping the demonstrations free of partisan politics, groups calling the election fraudulent have also joined the scene.
arin@heraldcorp.com
