[Gangnam Perspective] Regrettable Debate over Election Fraud and Flawed Elections

Political philosopher Langdon Winner, in his essay "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", brings up the story of a bridge designed by New York City urban planner Robert Moses. The overpasses he designed on Long Island were built unusually low. They were not high enough for buses to pass underneath. As a result, Black residents and low-income groups, who mainly relied on public buses, found it difficult to visit the parks beyond the bridges. By contrast, those parks effectively became the preserve of white middle-class residents who drove their own cars.
This case presents two possibilities from the designer’s perspective. If, even before drawing up the plans, the designer deliberately intended to block access for certain social groups, then it is a political design. One cannot deny that the technology itself has taken on a political character. On the other hand, if the bridge was built without such intent but ended up excluding a particular group, then it is simply a flawed design.
The reason for revisiting a paper published in 1980 is that it neatly explains the current debate over alleged election fraud in the United States of America (U.S.). In the U.S., often described as an advanced democracy, there is now a heated argument over whether to overhaul the electoral system. Ahead of the midterm election this November, the Republican Party (GOP) has pushed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act through the United States House of Representatives. The core of the bill is to require voters to present citizenship documents with a photo ID at the polls and to restrict voter registration by mail or online.
The background to this controversy is clear. It reflects U.S. President Donald Trump’s belief that fraudulent elections have occurred through proxy voting by undocumented immigrants. He argues that lax practices, in which voters cast ballots without proper verification of their identity, have enabled illegal voting. The Republican Party’s bill therefore seeks to recognize the right to vote only for those who hold photo identification. The Democratic Party of the United States counters that undocumented immigrants do not have the right to vote in the first place, so the bill is fundamentally illogical. Democrats also stress that many citizens in reality do not possess the required citizenship documents. They warn that, if this law takes effect, countless people will lose their eligibility to vote.
Let us examine these sharply opposed positions through Langdon Winner’s lens. On its face, the Republican Party’s bill claims to clarify voter identification and thus to uphold election integrity. Interpreted that way, it is an attempt to fix a flawed electoral system. However, if the bill was crafted with the intention of excluding the Democratic Party of the United States’ base, then the neutrality of the system is lost. Both sides, of course, insist they are neutral. Yet, to borrow Winner’s language, once we enter the political realm, there is no such thing as a neutral design.
South Korea is no exception to this question. Allegations of election fraud are raised endlessly. From Winner’s perspective and from the U.S. debate over election fraud, we can draw two lessons. First, in South Korea the only way to put an end to disputes over fraudulent elections is to discern political intent. We must distinguish between fraudulent elections and flawed elections by recognizing when a system is designed to serve the goals of a particular group. If electoral rules are revised in a way that improves access specifically for a certain party’s supporters, that is precisely what should be called a theory of structural election fraud.
One thing is clear: compared with the U.S., South Korea’s debate over election fraud is modest to an almost excessive degree. In the U.S., advocates of the election-fraud narrative want election administration, which is now handled by each state, to be centralized and to adopt strict identity verification. In South Korea, however, the National Election Commission (NEC) manages elections nationwide under unified standards, and every citizen holds a Resident Registration Card. In a sense, the ideal voting system that the Republican Party (GOP) hopes to achieve may already be firmly in place in our society.
Moreover, we live in an era when Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the course of human civilization. Algorithms to detect election fraud are being developed, blockchain-based voting systems are under discussion, and technologies to identify voters through biometric authentication are already in our hands. Yet even the most advanced technologies become corrupted in the absence of social trust and consensus. It is regrettable that we live in an age of distrust and conspiracy theories.
jjack3@fnnews.com Reporter