The National Election Commission of the Republic of Korea Holds the 2024 Seoul International Forum on Elections

at JW Marriott Hotel Seoul on April 8th

Marking its 10th year anniversary, the Seoul International Forum on Elections has been regularly held since 2015 with the purpose to discuss democracy and elections with other election management bodies and experts from international organizations.

The opening ceremony of the event was commenced by Chairperson Rho Tae-ak of the NEC with his opening remarks, followed by congratulatory remarks by Ambassador Ambassador Peter van der Vliet (Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Republic of Korea) and Dagmar Schmidt Tartagli (Embassy of Switzerland in the Republic of Korea). The event was joined by domestic and international election officials, international election observers, and officials from embassies located in the Republic of Korea.

The international election observers stayed for the International Election Observation Program for the 22nd National Assembly Elections as ODA recipients from April 4 to April 12, participating in activities hosted by the NEC such as observation of voting/counting and knowledge exchange.

Around 120 guests participated in this year's forum in which they profoundly discussed the general theme of "Crisis and Challenges in Modern Democracy: Paving the New Way in the Era of Rapid Changes," with the theme of the first session, Politics of Conflucts: Cause and Solution of Political Polarization" and the second/third session, "AI and Elections, A Double-Edged Sword."

The first session (morning session) discussed political polarization and ways to recover trust in elections, which are the most serious issues that is causing a threat against democracy. The afternoon session was composed of two different sessions, in which participants freely talked about how to harness artificial intelligence in the field of election management to improve accuracy and efficiency in the second session and risks of elections using artificial intelligence and how to find counermeasures in the third session.