Absentee voting for next week’s general elections began across the country on Thursday and will continue through Friday.

Pre-registered voters began casting their absentee ballots at 542 polling stations, the National Election Commission said, noting that voting hours are between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Voters are required to bring two absentee ballots ― one for their preferred candidate and the other for their chosen party ― sent by the commission beforehand, it said. Ballots marked outside of the polling stations will be invalidated.

If the voters fail to cast their absentee ballots by Friday, they can still vote on April 11 at balloting stations near their residence after first returning absentee ballots and envelopes to the commission, the election watchdog said.

The total number of eligible voters in next week’s elections has been tallied at 40,185,119, which accounts for 79 percent of South Korea’s total population of 50,848,706, the commission said.

The figure is up 6.3 percent, or 2.38 million, from the last general elections in 2008, and up 3.4 percent, or 1.33 million, from the 2010 local elections, it added. 

(Yonhap News)