Over 80,000 Waiting on the First Afternoon... Intense Interest
Competition Rate Far Surpasses That of Former President Park Geun-hye's Verdict
"Maybe this could be a historic moment."
Citizen Seo Young-won (36) accessed the Constitutional Court website around 7:40 PM on the 1st and was surprised. The monitor screen displayed the message "There are currently many users, please wait to access the service," and Seo's waiting number was 86,249. After 2 hours, the waiting number decreased to 37,955, then after 3 hours it dropped to 8,585, and only after about 3 hours and 30 minutes was the application finally successful. Seo said, "I've succeeded in booking tickets for Lim Young-woong, Coldplay, and the Korean Series baseball games before, but this is the first time the waiting line hasn't shortened like this," adding, "I felt the national interest in this trial was very high."
As citizens flocked to the Constitutional Court website to watch President Yoon Seok-yeol's impeachment trial verdict in person, interest in the 'audience application' surged.
The Constitutional Court announced that the verdict for President Yoon's impeachment trial would be held "at 11 AM on the 4th," and began accepting audience applications through the website from 4 PM that day.
A total of 20 seats are allocated to the general public by online lottery. Applications for audience seats are open until 5 PM on the 3rd of this month, and the lottery will be conducted electronically immediately after the application deadline at 5 PM on the 3rd. The lottery results will be individually notified via text message to mobile phones.
By late afternoon that day, the number of applicants waiting exceeded about 80,000, showing a very high competition rate. This is much higher than the competition rate during former President Park Geun-hye's impeachment verdict. In March 2017, when former President Park's impeachment verdict was announced, 24 seats were allocated for the general public, and there were 19,096 applicants, resulting in a competition rate of about 796 to 1.
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