The adoption and
widespread implementation of electronic voting technology in the election of
government officials, presidents and other elected officials can oftentimes be
hampered by the bureaucracy and party politics of public office. The technology
is already here and it's ready, but some politicians are hesitant to that sort
of change. And this is why some of the best advances may be coming from the
private sector.
The private
sector is inherently more agile and quickly adaptable to change than the public
sector. Major corporations and multinational companies in particularly can reap
many benefits from using e-voting technology within their own decision-making
infrastructure. In the case of South Korea, it has now been announced by the
Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) that it
will adopt electronic voting for its own internal processes.
Part of the
motivation behind this move, according to an article in Business Korea, is to
“act as a stimulus for the enhancement of voting rights of shareholders.” In
many ways, the shareholders in a company are not dissimilar from the citizens
of a particular country. The decisions made by executives and elected officials
affect the shareholders and citizens directly, and thus the shareholders and
citizens want to ensure that their opinions and preferences are heard.
KEPCO is not the
first company in Korea to make this move, as some 452 Korean companies have
already adopted e-voting as part of their own practices. This is according to
the Korea Securities Depository and it reflects an astronomical increase compared
to just 79 companies at the end of last year. This still only represents 19
percent of companies in the KOSPI and 24 percent of companies in the KOSDAQ, so
much more progress needs to made among public companies in Korea to implement
electronic voting.
The positive
trend toward the higher adoption of e-voting among corporations and public
companies is also being reflected in other parts of Asia. More specifically, e-voting
was mandated for listing companies in Taiwan earlier this year. The
popularity of e-voting in the private sector is growing and will quickly become
the norm.
For elections in
the South Korean government itself, progress has been slower. The country's
people are generally more conservative in nature, though it did elect its first
female president two
years ago. This demonstrates some inclination toward a more progressive
mindset, one that would be more amenable to the adoption of e-voting for public
elections too.
At this time,
elections in South Korea do not use
technology for voter registration purposes, nor is an e-voting system used
in elections for public office. It's quite possible that the growth of e-voting
in the private sector, as demonstrated by KEPCO's announcement, will help to
spur further development in the public sector too.
This is in
addition to tests
and demonstrations of e-voting in recent years that have further illustrated
that Korea, a country rich in tradition yet definitely on the forefront of
innovation with such heavy hitters as LG and Samsung, is ready to adopt
e-voting on a more public context. It's ready to move into the 21st
century.
