Live from ballot counting station for S. Korea's 21st presidential election

Just hours after polls closed at 8 PM, ballot counting is now in full swing at hundreds of counting stations across the country.

For more on how the process is unfolding on the ground, we turn to our reporter Park Kun-woo, who's standing by at one of the key sites tonight.

Kun-woo, good to have you with us.

Evening, Mok-yeon.

So Kun-woo, walk us through what you're seeing there.

How is the ballot counting progressing in your location?

Yes, I'm currently standing at the ballot counting station set up at Seoul National University in Gwanak-gu District, southern Seoul.

This is one of the 2-hundred-54 counting stations nationwide, including 25 here in Seoul.

Voting ended at 8 PM Korea time, and counting began shortly afterwards at around 8:30 PM starting from Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, so it's been about one or two hours since the process started.

As of 10 PM, we just learned that the nationwide ballot counting rate stands at around 1 percent, and so far, the process has been running smoothly and orderly.

Since the voter turnout had already surpassed that of the previous presidential election an hour before polls closed, the counting process is expected to take a bit more time.

Now, about how the counting works.

There are eight key sections involved in the process.

First, after the ballot boxes are safely transported to counting stations under a police escort and election observers, they are received by the ballot reception team to check for any issues.

Then, the boxes are passed on to the box-opening team, where the ballots are taken out and neatly organized.

The ballots are then fed into a sorting machine that automatically classifies them by candidate.

Introduced in 2002, the machine has significantly sped up the process.

And the machines aren't connected to any network, making hacking them impossible.

Classified ballots are known to be manually checked in this election.

The ballots are then moved to the review team, where they're manually checked once more to filter out any invalid votes.

It then goes through two final rounds of verification before being confirmed and officially announced by the commissioner.

Early votes or votes from overseas are also being counted as soon as they arrive.

It's a lengthy process indeed—and a crucial one. I understand election authorities are making every effort to ensure transparency throughout the ballot counting process.

Tell us more.

That's right.

A total of around 70-thousand personnel have been deployed.

That includes election observers -6 from each party with a candidate, and 3 for each independent candidate.

Police authorities raised the national emergency level alert to the highest, "Gapho," from 6 AM this morning nationwide, enabling full mobilization.

The National Fire Agency has been mobilized in case of emergencies as well.

The National Election Commission expects the counting to be completed by 6 AM Wednesday.

But normally, the leading candidate is revealed earlier.

In the 20th presidential election, the projected winner was announced at 2 AM due to a neck-and-neck race.

And it was announced around 10 PM during the 19th election.

This time, the projection is expected to be made around midnight, so I'll be bringing you updates in our later newscasts.