The National Election Commission announced that as of 6 p.m. on the 3rd, the voter turnout for the 21st presidential election was provisionally recorded at 76.1%.
Out of the total number of voters for this presidential election, which is 44,391,871, 33,768,137 have completed their voting.
This reflects the results of early voting, in which 15,423,607 people participated from the 29th to the 30th of last month (34.74%), as well as the tabulation of overseas, shipboard, and absentee voting. The National Election Commission will release the combined early voting rates on its website starting at 1 p.m.
The current voter turnout is 0.4 percentage points higher than the turnout of 75.7% at the same time during the 20th presidential election in 2022.
As the combined early voting turnout has shown the highest rate for this time in past presidential elections, attention is focused on whether the final turnout will surpass 80% for the first time since the 15th presidential election in 1997. The final turnout for the 19th presidential election when early voting was introduced was 77.2%, and the final turnout for the 20th was 77.1%.
The region with the highest voter turnout was South Jeolla (81.8%), followed by Gwangju (81.7%) and North Jeolla (80.3%). The lowest turnout was in Jeju (71.9%), with South Chungcheong (72.8%) and North Chungcheong (73.9%) following. The voter turnouts for Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi were recorded at 76.4%, 74.5%, and 76.1%, respectively.
Voting will take place from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 14,295 polling stations across the country for 14 hours. Unlike early voting, in-person voting can only be done at the designated polling station for the voter's registered residence. The location of polling stations can be confirmed through the voting guide sent to each household, the ‘voter registration system’ of local administrative offices, and the polling station locator service on the National Election Commission's website.
However, if you are waiting in line at a polling station and receive a queue ticket by 8 p.m., you can still vote after the closing time.
Voters must bring a resident registration card, passport, driver's license, youth card, or any identification with a photo issued by a government agency or public institution. In the case of mobile identification, saved images cannot be used.
Ballot counting is scheduled to begin around 8:30 p.m. at 251 counting centers nationwide. The National Election Commission projected that the outline of the winning candidates will emerge around midnight, although this timing may advance or delay depending on the vote percentage differences among the candidates.