South Korea’s voter turnout for Wednesday’s local elections amounted to 61 percent, marking the second-highest turnout in the country’s local election history, according to the National Election Commission.
The NEC said 27.25 million out of 44.65 million eligible voters cast ballots in the elections held from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. nationwide.
The figure includes ballots cast during the two-day early voting period held May 29-30, which recorded a turnout of 23.51 percent, as well as absentee and residential voting.
The turnout was 10.1 percentage points higher than the 50.9 percent recorded for local elections in 2022, and was the second-highest among the nine local elections held so far, after the record 68.4 percent logged in the first local elections in 1995.
South Jeolla Province recorded the highest turnout at 65.7 percent, followed by Gangwon Province at 64.5 percent, South Gyeongsang Province at 64.4 percent and both Daegu and Ulsan at 64.2 percent.
In contrast, Gwangju, which is set to merge with South Jeolla Province into a special self-governing city starting July 1, posted the lowest turnout at 54.3 percent, followed by Jeju Island at 56.4 percent, Incheon at 58.2 percent and Gyeonggi Province at 58.4 percent.
Seoul recorded a turnout of 63.6 percent, above the national average.
Meanwhile, voter turnout in 14 National Assembly by-elections stood at 60.9 percent, with around 1.38 million out of around 2.27 million eligible voters casting ballots.
Voter turnout in Busan’s Buk-A district and Gyeonggi Province's Pyeongtaek-B district — two of the most closely watched battlegrounds — recorded 70.6 percent and 54.7 percent, respectively.
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com
