Millions of South Korean voters wore masks and moved slowly between lines of tape at polling stations on Wednesday to elect lawmakers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The National Election Commission said 15.6 million people had voted as of 5 p.m. When combined with the 11.8 million who cast their ballots during early voting or by mail, the overall turnout was at 62.6%, the highest since a 60.6% turnout in the 2004 general election.
The government also mapped out a voting process for those quarantined in their homes, a number that ballooned after the country began enforcing two-week quarantines on all arrivals from overseas on April 1. Hospitalized patients or those who were then under two-week quarantine were able to vote by mail if they had applied in late March. Around 400 of the mildly ill voted at temporary shelters during last week’s early voting.
The National Assembly is elected every four years. Voters directly elect 253 district seats, while the remaining 47 go to proportional representatives. A South Korean woman wears a mask and plastic gloves cast her vote in a polling station on the Parliamentary election amid the coronavirus outbreak on April 15, 2020 in Seoul, South Korea.Before the virus began absorbing public attention, Moon saw his support falter over a decaying job market, corruption scandals surrounding key political allies and an ambitious but fragile diplomacy with rival North Korea that’s falling apart.
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