S. Korea Holds Nationwide Elections in COVID-19 Era
- 4 years ago
코로나19 정국 속 선거 치룬 대한민국, 지켜보는 세계 각국
South Korea became the first country in the world to hold a nationwide election in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. What are some implications?
Another point to note is that the electoral bill has been revised last year, leading to many firsts in this elections. Tell us more on that?
Sure, with the passage of the electoral reform bill in last December, for the first time in Korean history, the legal voting age in the country was lowered from 19 to 18.
With this, some 548-thousand additional voters, mostly high-school students have been able to cast their ballots in this election.
Also, the way in which the 47 proportional representation seats are distributed changed.
A 50 percent mixed-member proportional representation system has been introduced, with aims to diversify Korea's National Assembly, which has been dominated by the two largest parties.
It's a bit complicated, but just to give you a recap, the previous system reflected a party's voter turnout in relation to the 47 PR seats.
But with the new system, only 17 out of the 47 seats will follow the existing system.
The remaining 30 seats will be distributed by taking the percentage of the PR vote won, then subtracting the number of local seats won. That remaining number is then divided by two.
This new system prompted the larger parties to create the so-called 'satellite parties' that only put forward candidates for the PR seats, allowing them to grab even more seats in the assembly.
It also led to the launch of other parties so that a total of 35 parties competed for the PR seats, making this years' ballot paper more than 48 centimeters long the longest proportional representation ballot in Korean history.
Are there key questions or factors that you are looking at as an indicator of how things will unfold throughout the night?
How will tonight's results impact this country's state of affairs post-general election?
When are we expecting the final results to come out?
The National Election Commission says the outline of the results of which party won the local district posts will be revealed by 2AM, but the vote count is expected to be completed by 4AM on Thursday.
Counting for votes for the proportional representation seats will likely be finished by 8AM due to the extraordinarily long PR ballot paper.
The final results of the distribution of PR seats will take even longer to be released because of the new calculation method based on the 50 percent mixed member proportional representation system.
The final results are expected to be announced on Thursday afternoon.
Still a bit early to tell you as there appear to be many hotly contested areas.
That is Arirang News' special election night coverage of South Korea's 2020 general elections.
Many thanks to both our political correspondent Kim Mok-yeon and An Junseong, Visiting Professor at Yonsei University GSIS.
South Korea became the first country in the world to hold a nationwide election in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. What are some implications?
Another point to note is that the electoral bill has been revised last year, leading to many firsts in this elections. Tell us more on that?
Sure, with the passage of the electoral reform bill in last December, for the first time in Korean history, the legal voting age in the country was lowered from 19 to 18.
With this, some 548-thousand additional voters, mostly high-school students have been able to cast their ballots in this election.
Also, the way in which the 47 proportional representation seats are distributed changed.
A 50 percent mixed-member proportional representation system has been introduced, with aims to diversify Korea's National Assembly, which has been dominated by the two largest parties.
It's a bit complicated, but just to give you a recap, the previous system reflected a party's voter turnout in relation to the 47 PR seats.
But with the new system, only 17 out of the 47 seats will follow the existing system.
The remaining 30 seats will be distributed by taking the percentage of the PR vote won, then subtracting the number of local seats won. That remaining number is then divided by two.
This new system prompted the larger parties to create the so-called 'satellite parties' that only put forward candidates for the PR seats, allowing them to grab even more seats in the assembly.
It also led to the launch of other parties so that a total of 35 parties competed for the PR seats, making this years' ballot paper more than 48 centimeters long the longest proportional representation ballot in Korean history.
Are there key questions or factors that you are looking at as an indicator of how things will unfold throughout the night?
How will tonight's results impact this country's state of affairs post-general election?
When are we expecting the final results to come out?
The National Election Commission says the outline of the results of which party won the local district posts will be revealed by 2AM, but the vote count is expected to be completed by 4AM on Thursday.
Counting for votes for the proportional representation seats will likely be finished by 8AM due to the extraordinarily long PR ballot paper.
The final results of the distribution of PR seats will take even longer to be released because of the new calculation method based on the 50 percent mixed member proportional representation system.
The final results are expected to be announced on Thursday afternoon.
Still a bit early to tell you as there appear to be many hotly contested areas.
That is Arirang News' special election night coverage of South Korea's 2020 general elections.
Many thanks to both our political correspondent Kim Mok-yeon and An Junseong, Visiting Professor at Yonsei University GSIS.