As of 6 pm today (9th), the turnout in the 20th presidential election was 75.7%.



By this time, at 14,464 polling stations across the country, 33,454,249 people out of 44,197,692 voters in the general election this year have completed their votes.



This is the result of reflecting the count of votes for overseas citizens, ships, and residences, including the early voting (36.93%) in which 16,323,602 people participated on the 4th and 5th.



This is 3 percentage points higher than the 72.7% turnout at the same time as the 2017 19th presidential election, and less than the final turnout (77.2%).



The 19th presidential election was held as a by-election following the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, an unprecedented in history, and voting continued until 8 pm.



In the main voting on this day, which will be held amid the great spread of COVID-19, voting for confirmed and quarantined COVID-19 will be held after the general voter voting is complete after 6 pm.



If you enter the polling place before 7:30 pm and receive a numbered ticket, you can vote even after 7:30 pm.



The number of confirmed and quarantined people participating in voting is also of interest as the number of confirmed cases is skyrocketing.



Attention is focused on whether the final turnout will exceed 80% for the first time since the 15th presidential election in 1997 when President Kim Dae-jung was elected.



According to the election statistics system of the National Election Commission, the turnout for the 13th presidential election in 1987, which was held for the first time after the direct constitutional amendment, was 89.2%, which was close to 90%.



Since then, the turnout has trended downward during the 14th presidential election in 1992 (81.9%), the 15th presidential election in 1997 (80.7%), the 16th presidential election in 2002 (70.8%), and the 17th presidential election in 2007 (63.0%). .



The turnout in the 18th presidential election in 2012, which was followed by an ultra-thin situation, greatly increased to 75.8%, and the turnout in the 19th presidential election held early after impeachment was 77.2%.



The 19th presidential election was also the first presidential election in which advance voting was introduced.



The National Election Commission predicted that "the final turnout in this election will be slightly higher than in the previous election" through a notification to reporters.



By city/province, Jeonnam (80.4%), Gwangju (80.1%), and Jeollabuk-do (79.7%) had the highest voter turnout in the three regions of Honam.



The high early voting results in these regions seem to have been the driving force.



The early voting turnout in Jeollanam-do was 51.45%, in Jeonbuk-do 48.63%, and in Gwangju 48.27%.



Sejong (79.3%), Daegu (77.7%), Gyeongbuk (77.3%), Ulsan (76.9%), Seoul (76.4%), Daejeon (75.6%), Gyeonggi (75.2%), Gyeongnam (74.4%), Gangwon (74.4%), North Chungcheong (73.6%), Busan (73.6%), Incheon (73.2%), South Chungcheong (72.8%) and Jeju (70.4%).



Meanwhile, the National Election Commission believes that the counting of the votes will begin at around 8:10 pm tonight.



The general view is that the general outline of the election will come out tomorrow at around 1 am, despite the very close contest between Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea and Yoon Seok-yeol of People's Strength.



(Photo = Yonhap News)