Friday, April 17, 2020

Democracy > Orders to Stay Indoors

We are only a third through a year and it looks like we won't be seeing anything past our bedroom walls with the God-forsaken COVID-19 cases taking over the ways of life as we know it-- running errands, human touch, and elections. This, however, may not be the case for South Korea. In fact, showing up to something many would (sadly) opt-out for shows to have a staggering impact in numbers during this time. For the first time in 28 years, South Korea had a 66.6% turnout (about 44 million voters)-- over a quarter of the country's population. Most of the voters showed up in masks and gloves while keeping their distance, especially within the disinfected voting booths. This is the highest they've seen since the 71.9% turnout in 1992. The result of the election was a landslide; the Democratic party won the majority (180 seats filled in the National Assembly seating of 300), leading to the party gaining 60 seats. Nevertheless, this is still an unprecedented event considering there are about 10,000 infected, but about 7,000 recovering-- a noteworthy accomplishment in which the government receives widespread praise for the way they've been handling the crisis-- it's no wonder why the election had such a high turnout. This was also the first nationwide vote held in any highly infected country in the world since the outbreak began.

South Korea sees the largest turnout in almost 30 years in election held during coronavirus outbreak

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