The Killing Vote (국민사형투표, lit. "Death penalty referendum") is an ongoing 2023 South Korea mystery/crime drama based on a webtoon of the same Korean title.
After Bae Gi-cheol, a wealthy criminal that exploited minors gets released only after one year in prison due to legal chicanery, a mysterious poll appears in the phones of every single citizen in South Korea asking if they would like to see him executed. In the very next day, he shows up murdered, and a figure wearing a simplified dog mask named Gaetal announces "The Killing Vote", where twice a month he would hold a public vote in whenever a criminal that got away should die. It is up to police officers Kim Mu-chan (Park Hae-jin) and Joo Hyeon (Lim Ji-yeon)to investigate and stop the murders.
The Killing Vote provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Gaetal's victims are these.
- Bae Gi-cheol, the first victim was a CP distributor with over 200,000 videos that restarted his "operations" on the first day of his release.
- Uhm Eun-Kyung murdered her three husbands (and was on her way to kill the fourth) on ways that looked like accidents and abused her children to win large insurance settlements.
- Ignored Expert: Joo Hyeon found an video of Gaetal gloating about his objectives one day before the death of Bae Gi-cheol, but any cries to investigate it further were shot down by her superiors before he revealed himself to the public.
- Insurance Fraud: Uhm Eun-Kyung not only murdered her three husbands in ways that look like accidents to collect their generous life insurances, she also abused her children to also collect money related to their "accidents".
- Involuntary Charity Donation: After he was "executed", the large cryptocurrency fund of Bae Gi-cheol, a CP distributor, was redirected to a charity towards children victim of sexual abuse.
- Ironic Death: The people "executed" are killed on a way that reminds them of their motives or crimes, like Uhm Eun-Kyung, who conveniently left an car accident that killed her husband unscathed, was strapped to a car set to explode if people voted to "execute" her.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: That is the objective of Gaetal, only killing awful criminals that got away with light punishments (or none at all) on the legal system.
- White Mask of Doom: Gaetal (lit. "dog mask") wears one that vaguely resembles a puppy.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The police attempts to pull one of those with Kim Mu-chan being portrayed by the media as being gravely wounded, fighting for dear life after being caught on the Uhm Eun-Kyung's car explosion to diminish the public perception of Gaetal. Turns out that he had only suffered a few scratches and was holed up in the hospital as part of the ruse. However, the misdirection worked too well, and after receiving many angry comments on their private forum, Gaetal leaked footage of Mu-chan surviving the accident to the press...
