Every Vote Counts

In a study by the National Election Committee on Sunday, 67 percentage of eligible electors said they definitely planned to project their ballots in the presidential election. In a similar study conducted during the years leading up to the 2002 presidential election, 80.5 percentage of Koreans said they would vote no substance what, but only 70.8 percentage of eligible electors actually ended up doing so. Judging by that precedent, some are forecasting that less than 60 percentage of eligible electors may actually project their ballots this time.

Fueling such as anticipations is the fact that 810,755 electors registered for absentee vote this time, which is around 56,000 less than in 2002, even though the sum figure of eligible electors have grown by around 2.68 million since then. In fact, elector turnout have been steadily declining from 89.2 percentage of eligible electors during the 13th presidential election, to 81.9 percentage during the 14th presidential election, 80.7 percentage during the 15th, and 70.8 percentage during the 16th.

It¡¯s true that this race have been marked by campaigners seeing no alteration in their places in footing of blessing ratings, leading to neutrality among voters. Mudslinging between campaigners probably added to the degree of neutrality and loathing. We can also take to believe that the more than advanced a state is, the less its elector turnout will go as elections are held regularly. But in French Republic 84 per centum of eligible electors project their ballots during the presidential election in May of this year, 12 percentage points higher than the former election. Heated policy arguments between the progressive and conservative campaigners over a "new France" triggered explosive involvement among voters.

It¡¯s true that the most of import thing in an election is winning. But our presidential elections have got been marked by the victor taking everything and the also-ran being left with nothing. Competition between campaigners have been a barbarous conflict to the decease with triumph or licking as the lone options, while elector involvement have been waning every year. At this rate, the true significance of an election, through which different sentiments are taken into business relationship and national integrity is achieved through the credence of licking by the losing candidates, might go things seen only in textbooks.

There¡¯s no such as thing as meaningless ballots in an election. Regardless of how many ballots were project in favour of a peculiar candidate, this is just the sentiment of the public. No substance who is elected into office, Korean political relation is changing so that it is becoming increasingly hard not to see the different sentiments of voters. Even if the actions and words of the campaigners and their political parties may choler or let down us, we must all project our ballots in Dec. 19. This is where Korea¡¯s adjacent five old age begins.