제21대 국회의원선거 개표 시작<br /><br />It's been about an hour since the polls closed, and they've officially started counting the votes.<br />To fill us in on the counting procedure, our Kim Dami is at one of the five vote counting facilities in Seoul and she joins us live now.<br />Dami, how are they doing the counting, and when do you think we'll start to see results?<br />Good evening, Conn-young.<br />The ballot boxes are continuing to flow in here at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena.<br />As you can see right behind me, the counting is being done by around 8-hundred people.<br />In the last general election in 2016, it took around 8 hours to get final results,<br />but this year it's going to take longer.<br />Hopefully, we should be able to see some results taking shape by around 2 AM.<br />In fact, the National Election Commission predicts that for single member districts, vote counting will end... at around 4 AM.<br />But for the proportional representation seats, counting will go on until 8 AM, and the final results will be announced on Thursday afternoon.<br />This is because while the district ballots are counted by machine, the PR ballots this year are too long for the machines, so they have to be counted by hand.<br />They're so long because this year there are 35 parties, which is a record number.<br />Across the country there are around 64-thousand vote counters, an increase of 35 percent from the last election.<br />On top of the need for manual vote counting, things are different this time because of the COVID-19 crisis.<br />ALL the vote counters are wearing masks and gloves while keeping an appropriate distance from one another.<br />The top priorities this election are sanition and safety, so the polling stations are ventilated on a regular basis. And any volunteer who feels unwell will leave the facility immediately.<br />For real-time updates, the National Election Commission is also providing the count online.<br />That's all I have for now, but I'll bring you more updates in our later newscast. Conn-young.<br />
