"'Democratic Party Landslide' but Counting Shows People Power Party Leading? ...Why Is There a Difference?"

Early Voting at Eupmyeondong Level with a Single Ballot Box
Likely Impacted by Longer Counting Times and Other Factors

Contrary to the projections from the three major terrestrial broadcasters' exit polls predicting a landslide victory for the opposition, the actual vote count shows the ruling party performing strongly. The National Election Commission explained that the delay in counting is due to the large number of early voting ballots compared to the results at the eup, myeon, and dong levels.

According to the KBS exit poll results announced immediately after the close of voting on the 10th, the People Power Party and its proportional satellite party, People Power Future, are expected to secure 87 to 105 seats, including 70 to 86 constituency seats and 17 to 19 proportional representation seats. On the other hand, the Democratic Party is projected to win 178 to 196 seats, combining 166 to 182 constituency seats and 12 to 14 seats from the opposition proportional satellite party led by the Democratic Party, the Democratic United Party.

The vote counting is underway at the counting center set up at Shingwang Girls' High School in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, after the voting for the 22nd National Assembly election ended on the 10th. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

However, unlike the exit poll results, as of 9:05 PM, the constituency vote count shows the People Power Party leading. At this time, the People Power Party is ahead in 129 constituencies, while the Democratic Party leads in 105 constituencies.

Why are the results so different?

The National Election Commission explained that the current vote count, which is less than 10% complete, may not fully reflect the overall voter sentiment. The counting of early voting ballots, which are collected all at once, can be delayed in aggregation.

An official from the commission stated, "Both the main vote and early votes are opened together, but currently, early votes are contained in a single ballot box, so it takes a long time to produce counting results," adding, "In early voting, several thousand ballots are in one ballot box per eup, myeon, or dong, whereas in the main vote, the voting districts are divided into smaller units, so the counting results are aggregated quickly."

The official further explained, "Some early votes have been opened, but the results have not yet been released."

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