Photo : YONHAP News
Voter turnout for South Korea’s ninth nationwide local elections reached 61 percent as of 9 p.m. Wednesday.
The National Election Commission said the tentative figure is around seven percentage points lower than the record voter turnout posted in the first local elections in 1995, but zero-point-eight percentage points higher than the second highest voter turnout posted in the seventh local elections in 2018.
The figure was 18-point-four percentage points lower than the voter turnout posted for last year’s presidential elections but roughly ten percentage points higher compared to the 50-point-nine percent recorded in the previous local elections in 2022.
Among the regions where the final voter turnout figures were tallied on Wednesday, South Jeolla Province posted the highest voting rate of 65-point-seven percent followed by Gangwon Province and South Gyeongsang Province.
Gwangju had the lowest rate of 54-point-three percent followed by Jeju and Incheon. Seoul had a turnout of 63-point-three percent.
Early voting on Friday and Saturday had drawn 23-point-51 percent of eligible voters, a record turnout for local elections.