A recall vote may be held if the representative democracy system is significantly damaged by a local government head or a local council member directly elected by residents due to his/her illegal or unfair activities, residents will be able to vote against the head/council member before the expiration of his/her term of office.
In addition, if resident's vote is held to decide a policy of local government, a recall vote indicates that residents have the right to implement the personnel management of their local government.
A recall vote may be requested in writing through the submission of signatures of a certain number of residents and reasonable grounds for a request for a recall vote. Residents can make a public official resign through recall votes in which more than one third of the eligible voters cast their votes and more than 50% of the valid votes agree on the resignation. Even though a recall vote may shrink public official's activities, make them defensive, or be used in favor of interests of their political parties, generally it improves the responsibility of public officials and is used to check public officials, resulting in enhancing and guaranteeing a direct democracy system. Korea formulated the「Recall Vote Law」on May 24, 2006 as the Law No. 7958 to encourage resident's participation in the local autonomy and enhance democracy and responsibilities of local administration and it came into effect on May 25, 2007.
Residents may request a recall vote to the competent Election Commission with their signatures and a reason for requiring a recall vote raised by a certain number of residents against public officials elected except proportional representation members in local councils.
If it has been less than a year since the start date of the term of office of public officials, if the rest of the term is less than a year, or if it has been less than a year since the last recall vote against public officials, residents shall not request a recall vote.
If the competent Election Commission deems a request for a recall vote legitimate, the details of a recall vote shall be announced immediately.
To propose a recall vote, the date of a recall vote and the recall vote agenda shall be announced no later than seven days after the submission of explanation by the person a recall vote has been requested against.
The date for a recall vote is set by the competent Election Commission between 20 to 30 days from the date for announcement of a recall vote.
A person whose age is eighteen or more and who is registered as a resident in the district under the jurisdiction of the local government concerned as of the date of preparation of electoral register has the right to vote in a recall vote.
In addition, a foreigner whose age is eighteen or more and who has had permanent residence for more than three years, and who is registered in the register of foreigners of the local government concerned has the right to vote.
A Recall Vote campaign is allowed from the day after the notification day of a recall vote to one day before the recall vote date. Recall vote campaigns include the installation of offices and other tools for campaigns, newspaper advertising, speech sessions and debates, campaigns through the information communication network and the Internet advertising.
A recall is confirmed if more than 1/3 of the eligible voters cast their votes and more than 50% of the valid votes agree.
Then, the corresponding public official shall lose his/her position from the day the vote result is confirmed.
Note that if the number of those who have voted is less than 1/3 of the total number of voters eligible to vote in the recall vote, ballots will not be counted.