<Anchor> Under the



current election law, even if you go to an election and fall, if you get 10% or more of the number of valid votes, you will get half the cost of the election, and if you get more than 15%, you will get the full refund.

This is to ensure that there is no one who cannot run because of lack of money.

Instead, if the election is invalidated for violating election laws, the money received must be returned.

The collection deadline is 5 years, and if it is not paid within that time, the NEC may request a trial and increase it, but it was found that the amount of Narat money that was not received because of not doing so was over 3 billion won.



Reporter Kang Min-woo reported this content alone.



<Reporter>



Chung Chun-seok, head of Ulsan Dong-gu, won the 2010 local election, but in the same year, a fine of 5 million won was finalized for violating the election law.



According to the Election Act, 83 million won had to be returned, but the claim was extinguished five years later, without paying a penny.



Later, he recovered his right to be elected and was elected mayor of the district again in 2018.



[Ulsan Dong-gu Office official: (by raising a fund instead of returning it) I'm looking at a way to secure a job or support for this...

.] As in



the case of Mayor Chung, the SBS report confirmed that the election cost, which was overdue and could not be returned, amounted to KRW 3.2 billion.



The statute can be suspended by seizing the subject's property through the tax office, or the NEC can directly file a lawsuit to extend the statute for another 10 years, but this has not been done properly, making it impossible to claim unreturned money at all.



If the relevant authorities, such as the NEC, paid a little more attention, it could have been enough.



The bigger problem is that because of this poor management, there are a lot of people who don't pay.



Since the 17th general elections in 2004, 75 people have survived without receiving an order to return election expenses, and the amount is 17.8 billion won.



There were 17 people who ran for election again without returning money.



[Kim Yong-pan / Representative of the People's Strength: (Election cost) I think that amendments to the relevant laws, such as preventing non-returners from returning to public office elections, are necessary.]



In addition, the current election law provides grounds for the disclosure of the list of non-returners

.

There are also criticisms that the people's right to know is being violated.



(Video coverage: Kim Hyun-sang and Choi Choi Woong, video editing: Choi Hye-young, CG: Seo Seung-hyun)