[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] In the April 15 general election, the counting of proportional representation National Assembly members' ballots is expected to be done 100% by hand for the first time in 18 years since the introduction of mechanical devices. This is because the number of parties participating in the proportional representation election reached 38, making the ballot paper 51.9 cm long, which has made machine sorting practically impossible.
According to the National Election Commission on the 27th, if all 38 parties participating in the proportional representation election confirm their participation by the candidate registration deadline, the ballot paper length will reach 51.9 cm. This is the longest ever since the introduction of the party-list 'one person two votes system' in the 17th general election in 2004, where voters mark both a district candidate and a supporting party.
The Election Commission prepared the ballot paper applying a marking box height of 1.0 cm and a separation box of 0.3 cm when the number of parties was between 18 and 22. When the number of parties exceeds 23, the separation box is reduced to 0.2 cm to prevent the ballot paper from becoming too long. However, even with the reduced separation box this election, the ballot paper length exceeds 50 cm including the marking boxes, separation boxes, and top and bottom margins of 6.5 cm.
The longest ballot paper before was 33.5 cm in the 20th general election in 2016, when 21 parties participated. The 17th election, which had no separation boxes, was 24.7 cm (14 parties), the 18th was 26.0 cm (15 parties), and the 19th was 31.2 cm (20 parties).
Due to the lengthening of the party ballot paper, the Election Commission is preparing for manual counting in this election. It is reported that the Commission has been preparing for manual counting by securing additional counting staff in anticipation of a large number of parties registering.
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