Election campaign research using NFT: Focusing on the 2022 presidential election HOK project

Abstract

Elections are an essential process for securing public opinion and legal justification in a democratic society. In the case of the Republic of Korea, a rigid electoral culture was established during the military dictatorship, which caused many electoral systems to become unilateral. However, as times have changed, various means of communication between candidates and voters have been newly introduced, and various ways to lower election costs and actively promote election activities have been attempted. Among them, the introduction of the use of social media reflects the transition from group focus to individual focus and from one-sided publicity to active election campaigns through interaction between candidates and voters. In this study, we present examples of election campaigns using the recently developed NFT(non-fungible token) as part of promoting the election atmosphere and encouraging the supporters of each party's presidential candidates to participate in the vote. The HOK (House of Kard) was a tournament project that used NFTs for the advance voting of candidates in the 20th Korean presidential election. In each round, the candidate-'s’ NFTs were presented with a new concept. The HOK project presented NFTs in graphic form as entertainment elements called league matches based on the presidential election. Consumers with NFTs tried a virtuous cycle structure where they could choose candidates they support or cards with a high probability of winning for various reasons, and small sales were attempted to increase the NFT value for owners who support and sponsor them. The HOK project had the goal to promote a new way of lighthearted participation in the presidential election away from the rigid election culture of the past, and became one example of the various NFT applications that may be attempted in the future.