Early voting in S. Korea heads into final day following record-high figures on first day

Polling stations are open until 6PM today for the second of the two days of early voting in the presidential election.

We connect right away with our Ahn Sung-jin standing by at one of the polling stations.

Hello there, Sung-jin.

Sung-jin, I'm aware you are at the same polling station as you were yesterday.

How's the second and final day looking this morning?

Right, so Dami, I'm currently in front of an early voting location in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu District, an area bustling with office workers.

I was out here since early this morning, and we're seeing an influx of people coming in to vote before going to work. Yesterday saw the highest voter turnout rate in early voting, which first took place in national elections in 2014, but today, it was relatively calmer than the same time yesterday when we got here.

However, over time starting from 8-9AM, the line has begun to get much longer so we'll have to keep an eye on it till the afternoon.

As we head into the last day of early voting, have a listen to some of the voters.

"I came to vote early before going to work. Regardless of who becomes the next president, I think it's important to vote."

"I think voting is the least we can do. I wish that the next government will be fair and transparent and bring more change for those in their 20s and 30s."

2. So Sung-jin, we already saw a record-high early voting figure on the first day, how are the figures looking 4 hours into the voting today?

Right, if we take a closer look at how many people cast their ballot this morning as of 9AM at this polling station I'm at 1,845 people have voted, and a total of 223,978 for Seoul.

Other major cities like Busan saw 53,151 people, Daegu 35,308, and Sejong 8,619.

However, as we just passed 10AM, new figures should be out, which I will be back with for our later newscast.

3. And Sung-jin, today is the last day voters can cast their ballot in the early voting.

Walk us through the voting procedure one more time, and how is the National Election Commission ensuring a transparent election?

To first explain how early voting works, early voting takes place for two days, Thursday and Friday, from 6 AM till 6 PM.

Voters must be over 18 and bring a government-issued ID.

I just mentioned the number of voters per hour, which is a new measure for this presidential election that the NEC announced, the number of voters per hour will be disclosed by each polling station for the first time.

The process of verifying vote-counting officials will also be strengthened after accusations over the use of Chinese voting officials in 2020.

The NEC emphasized that in this election, all 260-thousand voting and counting officials are Korean nationals.

Ballot boxes will be monitored around the clock, and the NEC will also operate a "Fair Election Observation Team" for the first time to observe the entire election process from voting to counting.

That's all I have for now and I will be back with updates in our later newscast.

All right, Sung-jin. Thanks for the report this morning.