National Assembly Passes Amendment to Election Law Expanding Number of District and County Councilors in Incheon

by Yoo Jaehoon

Published 28 Apr.2026 14:34(KST)

Updated 28 Apr.2026 16:52(KST)

On April 28, the National Assembly passed a bill to amend the law to increase the total number of district, county, and metropolitan/provincial council members in line with the administrative district reorganization of Incheon Metropolitan City.

The National Assembly announced that, at a plenary session held that afternoon, the “Partial Amendment to the Public Official Election Act” containing these provisions was passed with 234 out of 245 members present voting in favor and 12 abstaining. The plenary session was convened specifically to address this bill.

Yonhap News Agency

Assemblyman Bae Junyoung, a member of the Special Committee on Political Reform, provided an explanation of the proposal, stating, “As Incheon City will shift to a structure of 2 counties and 9 districts effective July 1, 2026, there is a need to rationally adjust the number of basic council members to properly ensure the representativeness of the newly established districts.”

Assemblyman Bae continued, “In accordance with this intent, the amendment to the Public Official Election Act passed on the 18th of this month increased the number of basic council members in Incheon by three. However, during the subsequent redistricting process, it was found that some areas would actually see a reduction in seats despite the overall increase. Therefore, it was concluded that further increases were necessary to uphold the principles of representativeness and equality in voting value for residents.”

Accordingly, this amendment will increase the total number of district and county council members in Incheon from 125 to 128, and the total number of metropolitan/provincial council members nationwide from 3,003 to 3,006.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly is scheduled to hold another plenary session on May 7 to discuss pending bills that were not addressed in the first half of the current session.