 The members of the CEMC are counting the vote of the Representative Council of the College of Police & Criminal Justice. /Photograph by Seo Yoo-jeong |
From 27th to 29th of March, for three days, the by-election of the General Representative Council (GRC), the Preparing Committee for Graduation (PCG), and the student councils of two colleges (Natural Science and Engineering) was held. Even though the by-election took place, the PCG has to go through re-voting and the student council of Natural Science election was invalidated.
Different from the other by-elections, the GRC had two candidates “Gipeum” party and “Majubom” party. Among 199 votes, “Gipeum” party obtained 102 votes (51.26 percent) and was elected as the 50th GRC. However, revote of the PCG was decided due to the error rate. Although the real number of votes was 42, “Communicative Preparing Committee for Graduation” party obtained 38 favorable votes and 6 dissented votes, 44 votes in total, so the error rate was 4.76 percent. According to the bylaws of Dongguk University, if the error rate is over three percent, the election becomes null. Hence, the 50th PCG election was finally nullified. Before the election, the Central Election Management Committee (CEMC) showed they are aware of the problem with the error rate and requested voters to vote cautiously through the Facebook page. Choi Gang-min, the chairperson of the CEMC, mentioned, “Unfortunately, because of two votes, the PCG election was invalidated. In case of a small-scale election such as the PCG election, I think the rules of the error rate should be adjusted.”
The College of Natural Science also failed to elect new student council on account of the low voter turnout, approximately 45 percent. The chairperson Choi said, “Low vote turnout is not just the problem of Dongguk University, but also of the whole society. Some promotions can help increase the turnout, but it is hard for us to find a fundamental solution.” On the other hand, the Student Council of the College of Engineering “Teukgongdae” was elected with 53.46 percent of total turnout and 92.4 percent of favorable votes. Lee Han-gyeol, the new chairperson of the College of Engineering said, “I want to repay students for their precious votes. I promise to advance the student’s society and communicate all the time.”