Foreign voting rights under strain as information barriers persist

When Stephane Mot, a French national living in Korea, learned he was eligible to vote in local elections, it came as "a good surprise." Most eligible foreign voters never get that far. Though the number of registered foreign voters hit a record 151,532 ahead of the June 3 local elections, turnout keeps falling, dragged down by language barriers, lack of outreach and little awareness that the right exists at all. In the 2022 local elections, just 13.3 percent of eligible foreign voters cast a ballot. In Korea, foreign nationals aged 18 or older can vote in local elections — for mayors, governors, district heads, local councilors and education superintendents — three years after obtaining an F-5 permanent residency visa. Chinese nationals make up the overwhelming majority, accounting for roughly 78 percent of eligible foreign voters for the 2022 elections. As the eligible foreign voter pool grows, some election commissions and candidates are stepping up multilingual outreach. Regional branches of the National Election Commission (NEC), including the office in Gangwon Province, are dis

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