South Korea’s general election held on April 10 saw a record high number of invalid votes for proportional representation.
According to the National Election Commission on April 14, there were 1,309,931 invalid votes, constituting 4.4% of the total votes for proportional representation. This number of votes was the fourth highest, following the People Future Party (36.7%), the Democratic Union Party (26.7%), and the Rebuilding Korea Party (24.3%), surpassing the New Reform Party (3.6%), the Green Justice Party (2.1%), and the New Future Party (1.7%). Considering that the New Reform Party won two seats if there had been an “Invalid Vote Party,” it could have potentially secured about three seats.
Since introducing the semi-mixed-member proportional representation system in the 2020 election, the proportion of invalid votes has significantly increased. In the 18th to 20th elections, invalid votes were only 1.6%, 2.2%, and 2.7%, respectively, but the figure jumped to 4.2% in the 21st election with about 1.22 million invalid votes, and even more in the latest election. The system, intended to allocate fewer proportional representation seats to parties that win many constituency seats, aimed to support smaller parties. However, the intent has been overshadowed as major parties have created satellite parties to avoid losing seats, leading to an increase in invalid votes.
Experts interpret this spike in invalid votes as due to the confusion caused by major parties creating tactical satellite parties like the People Future Party of the People Power Party and the Democratic Union Party of the Democratic Party, and a record 38 proportional parties running, which resulted in a lengthy ballot paper of 51.7 cm. Professor Lee Jun-han from Incheon National University said, “The semi-mixed-member proportional representation system has facilitated the emergence of numerous parties, such as the Rebuilding Korea Party, which previously found it difficult even to attempt establishment,” and added, “It has led to voter confusion in distinguishing between party names at the polling station, distorting the original purpose of the proportional representation system.”
