Due to the 48cm proportional voting paper... Election results expected around the afternoon of the 16th

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] The outline of the proportional representation winners in the April 15 general election is expected to be revealed around the morning of the 16th, the day after the election. The confirmation of the winners is also expected to be possible late in the afternoon of the same day.

A representative from the National Election Commission (NEC) said in a phone interview with Asia Economy on the 14th, "Since the counting process for proportional representation is done by manual counting, the outline is expected to be revealed around dawn on the 16th," adding, "The final number of seats is also scheduled to be confirmed in the afternoon of that day."

For constituency seats, counting can be done using ballot sorting machines, so the outline of winners is expected to be available around midnight on election day, similar to past general elections. However, for proportional representation, where counting is generally completed by around 6 to 7 a.m. the day after voting, the confirmation of winners can only be made late in the afternoon on the 16th due to the need to calculate each party's vote share under the semi-proportional representation system. An NEC official explained, "Since the vote shares of each party in the constituencies must also be taken into account, the proportional representation results can only be finalized after all counting is completed."

The reason why proportional representation counting takes so long is due to the unprecedented phenomenon caused by the massive participation of as many as 35 parties, resulting in a ballot paper length of 48.1 cm. Although ballot sorting machines that speed up counting were introduced 18 years ago in 2002, they can only be used if the ballot paper is within 34.9 cm in length. Therefore, election staff have no choice but to manually sort and count the ballots one by one.

According to the NEC, in recent general elections held since 2000, counting after the polls closed took an average of 6.5 hours. The longest counting time was during the 20th general election, which took 7 hours and 50 minutes. The 17th general election in 2004 took 6 hours and 37 minutes. The 19th general election in 2012 and the 16th general election in 2000 each took 6 hours and 23 minutes, while the 18th general election in 2008 finished counting in 5 hours and 41 minutes.

Approximately 43.5 million proportional representation ballots were printed for this general election. Assuming a turnout rate of 58.0%, similar to the last general election, about 25.23 million ballots will need to be manually counted. The NEC plans to deploy a large workforce of about 74,000 people to speed up the counting process.

An NEC official stated, "We are making every effort to ensure rapid counting," adding, "However, considering that this is the first election to introduce the semi-proportional representation system, we are also paying close attention to accuracy."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.