35 Parties Nominating Proportional Candidates, 48cm Ballot Paper... Multiple Counting Inevitable

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Cheol-eung] The National Election Commission announced on the 28th that out of 51 registered parties, 41 will participate in either constituency or proportional representation elections.

Fifteen parties are participating in both constituency and proportional representation elections, six parties are participating only in constituency elections, and 20 parties are participating only in proportional representation elections.

The common symbols for constituency candidates were assigned based on the number of seats, with the Democratic Party of Korea receiving number 1. Following are the United Future Party with number 2, the Minsheng Party with number 3, the Future Korea Party with number 4, the Together Citizens Party with number 5, and the Justice Party with number 6. The nationwide unified symbol can only be assigned to parties that meet the criteria of having 5 constituency seats or 3% of the vote in the previous election.

On the party vote ballot for proportional representation, the Minsheng Party, with symbol number 3, is listed at the top, followed by the Future Korea Party (number 4), the Citizens Party (number 5), and the Justice Party (number 6). This is because the Democratic Party and the United Future Party, with symbols 1 and 2, are not fielding proportional representation candidates.

After the Justice Party, based on the number of National Assembly seats and the vote share in the last election, the Our Republic Party (number 7), the Minjung Party (number 8), the Korea Economic Party (number 9), and the People's Party (number 10) are arranged.

The People's Party (number 10), the Pro-Park New Party (number 11), and the Open Democratic Party (number 12) had the same number of seats and were assigned symbols through a draw. Following these are Korea (number 13), Let's Go! Peace and Human Rights Party (number 14), Let's Go Environmental Party (number 15), National Revolutionary Dividend Party (number 16), and the New People's Party (number 17). The Labor Party received number 22, the Green Party number 23, and the Future Party number 26.

With 35 parties participating in the proportional representation election, the party vote ballot is expected to reach 48.1 cm in length. Since this exceeds the length that can be processed by the ballot sorting machine (34.9 cm), manual counting has become inevitable.