The National Election Commission (NEC) on Sunday said 10.49 million of the country's 44.64 million eligible voters cast ballots during the two-day early voting period held Friday and Saturday, for a turnout rate of 23.5 percent.
The figure was 2.9 percentage points higher than the previous record of 20.6 percent set in the 2022 local elections. Since early voting was introduced nationwide in 2014, the highest early voting rate in any national election was 36.9 percent in the 2022 presidential election.
South Jeolla Province recorded the highest early voting rate among the country's 16 major administrative regions at 39.0 percent, followed by North Jeolla Province at 35.1 percent and the southwestern city of Gwangju at 27.8 percent.
The southeastern city of Daegu had the lowest turnout at 18.7 percent. Other southeastern regions, including Busan at 21.3 percent, North Gyeongsang Province at 22.4 percent and Ulsan at 22.5 percent, also fell below the national average.
In the Seoul metropolitan area, Gyeonggi Province recorded 21.0 percent, Incheon 21.6 percent, and Seoul 23.8 percent.
Early voting in 14 by-elections held alongside the local elections reached 24.1 percent, slightly higher than the rate for the local elections. Of the 2.26 million eligible voters, about 546,000 cast early ballots.
Among the by-election districts, Buan, Gimje and Gunsan in North Jeolla Province recorded the highest early voting rate at 42.6 percent, followed by Buyeo, Cheongyang and Gongju in South Chungcheong Province at 30.2 percent.
Busan Buk Gap, where candidates including the Democratic Party (DP)'s Ha Jung-woo, the conservative People Power Party (PPP)'s Park Min-sik and independent candidate Han Dong-hoon are competing, posted a relatively high early voting rate of 25.6 percent.
Busan's fiercely contested Buk district, where candidates including Ha Jung-woo of the ruling Democratic Party (DP), Park Min-sik of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) and independent candidate Han Dong-hoon are competing, saw a relatively high early voting rate of 25.6 percent.
By contrast, Daegu's Dalseong district recorded the lowest early voting rate in the by-elections at 17.6 percent. Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province, where candidates from five parties are running, also saw relatively low participation at 18.4 percent.
Meanwhile, strong turnout has raised expectations that overall participation in this year’s local elections could rise significantly. Local elections in South Korea have traditionally seen lower turnout than presidential or general elections.
Only two local elections have recorded turnout above 60 percent: the first nationwide local elections in 1995, which saw 68.4 percent turnout, and the 2018 local elections, which recorded 60.2 percent.
In the 2022 local elections, final turnout was just 50.9 percent despite record early voting of 20.6 percent, suggesting that early voting mainly changed the timing of participation rather than significantly boosting overall turnout.
Ha Sang-eung, a professor of political science and international relations at Sogang University, said, "In effect, the voting period extends to three days when the two-day early voting period is counted."
Ha predicted that final turnout would be higher than in the previous local elections, but not exceptionally high. "In closely contested regions, many people may still vote on election day even if early voting turnout is high. But in less competitive regions, turnout is unlikely to be high even if early voting participation is strong," he said.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, high turnout does not necessarily benefit any particular political party," he also said. "Especially in local elections, regional differences are significant, so a high overall turnout does not favor any specific party," he added.
But Ha dismissed claims by some far-right conservatives linking early voting to election fraud as "the most absurd and groundless rumor imaginable."
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