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| A health official disinfects a polling station at Chungwoon Elementary School in Seoul, Tuesday, a day before the parliamentary elections. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
By Jung Min-ho
While many countries are still under some form of movement restriction to slow the spread of COVID-19, Korea has proved that elections can be safely held despite the global pandemic.
For three days ― April 10, 11 and 15 ― 29,128,040 people, or 66.2 percent of eligible voters, cast their ballots across the country. Meanwhile, daily new virus cases remained under 50.
To protect public health and democracy at the same time, the government devised measures including instructing voters to wear masks and stand at least one meter apart while waiting. They were also asked to have their temperatures checked and put on plastic gloves before voting. So far, there has been no report of infection from polling stations.
This is even more surprising given that people who had been ordered to isolate themselves over virus concerns were not excluded from voting if they showed no symptoms, and about 13,000 of them indeed exercised their right.
All this was unthinkable only two months ago, when the number of new cases was increasing rapidly before Korea became the second worst-hit country after China, where the virus first emerged. But over the past month, Korea has successfully brought the crisis under control.
Apparently, most voters trust the government, as the high turnout and the election result ― a landslide win for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea ― indicate.
Dozens of countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Indonesia, have decided to postpone elections due to the pandemic, while others, including the United States, which is scheduled to hold the presidential election in November, are still deciding whether to do so.
As the first major country to successfully hold national elections since the epidemic started, Korea showed the world that ― with the right preparations ― postponing elections is not necessary.
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