[WORD_ON_THE_WEB] 'Not voting is like throwing your rights away'

The early voting rate for the June 1 local elections was an all-time high for a local election, at 20.62 percent.

Early voting took place on May 27 and May 28.

According to the NEC, among the 44,303,449-strong electorate, 9,133,522 people chose to vote early.

The early voting rate for the 2018 local elections was 20.1 percent, up from 11.49 percent in 2014, when the early voting system was first introduced for local elections.

The percentage was considerably lower than the early voting rate for the presidential election in March, which was 36.93 percent.

The areas with the highest early voting rate were South Jeolla, at 31.04 percent, Gangwon, at 25.2 percent, North Jeolla, at 24.41 percent, North Gyeongsang, at 23.19 percent and Sejong, at 22.39 percent.

#conflicting_opinions
“It’s the beginning of Yoon’s term. We aught to show support to the new government.”
“It’s obvious the current government won’t listen to the people. We should at least vote for the Democratic Party in local elections to bring those in charge to their senses.”

#exercise_your_right
“Voting is the only way to show that the people are watching, that our opinions matter.”
“Not voting is like throwing your rights away. Why don’t people realize that?”

#no_blind_choices
“We should make logical decisions on who would be best for our local governments, instead of choosing blindly based on the candidates’ parties.”
“No blind choices! We should put an end to this deep-rooted regionalism.”

BY LEE SI-YEOUNG, YOO JI-WOO [yoo.jiwoo@joongang.co.kr]