The voting began about an hour ago. A few points to watch as the polls close and counting begins:
- Turnout. Higher turnout is better for Moon Jae-in; lower turnout is better for Park Geun-hye. Park is in the clear if the turnout is less than 70%; Moon is in the clear if the turnout is more than 73%. The actual turnout is expected to be somewhere in the middle.
- Busan. If there is any place that can be analogized to a “swing state” in Korea, it is the second largest city of Korea that traditionally favored the NFP. Without a healthy share of votes from Busan, Moon Jae-in cannot win. Moon’s camp hopes to win 35-40% of the votes in Busan.
- Anyang. Similarly, if there is any place that can be analogized to a “bellwether state” in Korea, it is Gyeonggi-do Anyang. In all major elections of the last decade, Anyang’s votes most closely matched the national final results.
- Time to call. If the election is particularly close, it will take quite some time to call it. The 2002 presidential election was called around 10 p.m.; 2007 election, around 9 p.m. This election may not be called until 11 p.m.
Check back here for updates.
- 9:15 a.m. KST - As of 9 a.m., the turnout is 11.6%, nearly a full percentage higher than the 2002 election (in which the final turnout was 70.8%), and approaching the same-time numbers for the 1997 election (in which the final turnout was 80.7%.)
-10:25 a.m. KST - In the Korean Twitterverse (which has a clearly liberal bent,) the big news is a story of a young man who was near Lee Myeong-bak at the polling station, and refused to shake the president’s hand. Reportedly, Lee scolded that the young fella should have a more positive attitude.
-11:38 a.m. KST - Holy crap. As of 11 a.m., the turnout is 26.4%. This number is now higher than that for the 1997 election.
-1:05 p.m. KST- Ok, we might not get to 80% turnout after all. As of 1 p.m., the turnout is 45.3%, about 2% lower than the 1997 election at 1 p.m. But we are heading toward high-70% territory here. I should stop now before I jinx things.
-3:05 p.m. KST- 59.2% so far. Not quite the 61.9% of 1997, but significantly higher than 54.3% of 2002. Looks like we will end up at between 76 to 78%. If that ends up happening, my only prediction for this election might turn out to be wrong.
This will be the last update for a few hours, as it is past 1 a.m. EST. Will get back on this horse in about 6 hours or so.
-9:36 p.m. KST- The final turnout was 75.8%, and the initial exit polls predicted different results. But with 45.6% of the votes counted, things are looking good for Park Geun-hye right now, contrary to expectations. Park is leading by 4.7%, and KBS called the election already. Most progressive pundits are conceding defeat. I am ready to give this another hour.
-10:16 p.m. KST- Interesting — what was once a 5% PGH lead is now down to 3.8% lead, with more than 70% of Seoul’s votes (which favor MJI) left to be counted. Not sure if that will be enough to change the result, but bears watching for another hour or so.
How did a 75.8% turnout translate to PGH’s likely victory (at least at this point)? Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do hold the key. The region from which PGH hails turned out in massive numbers, and gave more than 80% of its votes to PGH.
-11:41 p.m. KST- Well, that does it — Park Geun-hye is Korea’s new president. My congratulations to her. Her lead went down to 3.6% and stabilized. Moon Jae-in is now on the move to his headquarters to give what is expected to be his concession speech. Park Geun-hye likewise is moving to Gwanghwamun area to give her victory speech. The final tally looks like it will be around 51.5% to 48%.
If I have any strength left over, I will provide a postmortem on how the election unfolded, and where the turning points were.
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Ain’t no weather in bellwether.
I don’t know which candidate is positively/adversely affected by this – but it’s bone chilling cold in Seoul today. It’s the coldest I have felt so far this winter.
Thank you sir, much obliged. Correction made.
it’s -7 and not particularly windy, it’s been colder than this several times already this year.
So this thread is now the open thread? Not much to say except I’m tired of the media milking the recent mass shooting.
It may very well not be the coldest day so far this year – I simply said, “It’s the coldest I have felt so far this winter.” Whatever the actual temperature – it’s f’ing cold!
Open thread, but regarding the presidential election. Thanks.
Someone I know on twitter said her father won quite a bit of money betting on the U.S. elections. Wish I could have bet because I was certain Obama would win months before the election.
A lot less certain about this one and knowing nothing about Korean politics, I put my money* on Moon Jae-In.
*not literally, because I don’t know how to do that
Given that Romney owned a hedge fund, I wonder whether he hedged the long position in his candidacy by investing in Obama futures, I mean betting on Obama. Think about it. He could get riskless profit by betting on Obama because if Romney had won he would have gained the huge post-presidency windfall in speaking fees and book deals. Given that Romney lost, he could collect on his bet.
around 1 pm it was at 44.7% not sure how that stacks up against 1997
Check out the update.
I think the poll numbers do show that South Korea has a vibrant democracy considering the cold weather.
thanks for the updates.
The Moon camp is a bit concerned about the relatively low turnout in the Seoul area:
http://m.news.naver.com/president2012/news/read.nhn?mode=LSD&sid1=001&oid=003&aid=0004889584
High turnout in Daegu and Gyeongbuk, too. This should get interesting tonight.
I took my wife to the polls – this is the first Korean election in which she has been eligible to vote since she got a green card 20+ years ago and it was revoked on that ground – and waited with her there outside in the cold for 90 minutes until she could get in. Lots of other people there too obviously. Nice to see
Valid concern, but Seoul historically never had a very high turnout. Check this out: http://biguse.net/679
Whats the law about recounts if its very close?
True, and with the turnout numbers the way they are, I expect a late SNS push by MJI’s people.
Voted a couple hours ago. People kept lining up at my station, looked like a high turnout.
They just broke the 70% line and the turnout is projected to be in the upper 70s.
I’m gonna go to sleep, and hopefully there won’t be any nasty surprises by the time I’m back up. I hate waking up to a bad news.
Since the participation rate will be about 75% which is good for Moon, but if the exit poles show some women voting for Park ~ even if it is only marginal, Park takes it. If not Moon is Prez.
@facebook-614620566:disqus impressive mobilization indeed, I spotted a Park enthusiast near Walmart in Honolulu. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3888891697509&set=pb.1135462980.-2207520000.1355905934&type=3&theater
I meant to write if women are voting for Park at higher rates than for Moon.
I was going to vote at my station when after waiting in line for 1 hour people started saying that MJI already won(about 5 p.m.), so I didn’t cast my vote for PGH:(
KBS-MBC-SBS exit polls shows Park with 50.1% and Moon with 48.9% according to Steve Herman.
YTN exit polls show MJI 49-53.5% PGH 46.1-49.9%.
I just saw that. It’s very close.
YTN has scrolling totals that show specific percentage rates . . . but most of them also show “개표 0%.” So I wonder – how can they be so specific when they don’t even show 1% of the votes having been counted?
They do exit poll projections.
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(I don’t know how much stock to put into K statistical projections. The problem is that I don’t know how good Koreans are at sampling. There is a huge difference between theoretical random sampling similar to observing red and yellow ping pong balls pulled from a burlap bag and political sampling. The statistician has to account for everything from age, (not so much race in Korea), sex, geography, socioeconomic factors, religion…. The statistician then has to know the larger sample itself based on those factors. Figuring the statistical error is then just a math trick and the easy part. In the U.S. pollster have been doing this reasonably well only since the ’70s.)
I’m sure they’ve figured out how to do statistics. It’s not as if the math behind statistics is lost on them. They teach the exact same math and theories. Any statistician worth his salt will take everything into account I am sure.
At 8pm – YTN is showing that PGH is leading 53.7% to 45.8% with 8% of the votes counted. The % literally changes by a tenth of a percentage with each update (every 15-20 seconds). I have no idea if most of those votes counted are from a particular region – or whether that actually reflect the national vote.
As I posted, the math trick is easy. The hard part is in determining how accurate the sample represents the whole.
If you think that is easy, then why isn’t every business student with grad courses in statistics Nate Silver?
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BTW, Nate Silver didn’t even do his own sampling, He just crunched a weighted statistical analysis of the credible statistical polls. His model that weighted the models was spot-on.
It’s likely that they’re regional. If they are similar to the U.S. model, then they report completed counts. Even from these geographic pockets, they can project who the winner is. For example, in Ohio they projected Obama as carrying the state even though Romney was far ahead by the votes counted in the districts that had reported. They knew that Romney didn’t carry those strong Romney districts strongly enough, so they projected Obama the winner.
Looks like PGH will ride this to a 6-7% victory over Moon. That’s a pretty good beating and a pretty resounding rejection of the progressives nationwide. Besides a few pockets and 전남/전북 Moon had no real support. This is especially interesting since we’ve been told, by the leftists, how LMB is so unpopular.
KBS: Park to get between 51.6% and 53.5% of votes compared to Moon’s range of 46%-47.9%.
With the percentage of votes counted at 29%, KBS has just pegged Park as a “likely” [유력] winner.
At 9:20pm YTN has PGH leading 52.4% to 47.2% with 41% of the votes counted.
Interestingly almost everything TK has said/predicted has turned out to not have happened. The lesson, when you are too emotionally involved in something it is difficult to be objective and you start subconciously ignoring information that doles not correlated with your predetermined view on how things should work.
His posts have still been very informative and interesting, I just expected some of his predictions/impressions to have born out more accurately. Ie MJI has 38% of Busan, but this has not had enough of a swing effect. Turn out was greater than 75% but MJI is not “in the clear”. The fact that almost 76% turned out at all. Ultimately it seems likje the better party won (DUP has been a 2yr trainwreck), but the poorer candidate won.
Well, all of my predictions stayed within what the mainstream media (right and left) thought. But looks like we now know what “broke the game.” Check the update coming up in a few minutes.
they call that being “dynamic”.
Keep dreaming, this is done.
Park Geun-hye scheduled to speak in Gwanghwamun at 10:30. I’m guessing it’s a victory speech.
He can be a the worst hack at times.
To sum up, unless you live in Seoul or Honam, you voted for Park Geun-hye. And if you lived in Daegu/Gyeongsangbuk-do, you REALLY voted for Park Geun-hye.
Say annyong to the DUPE’s! Record voter turnout in years didn’t mean a thing in the end for the Socialist and Communist parties.
Now get ready for incriminations of unfair elections and charges of dictatorship.
Not sure if that’s quite fair—the commonly accepted wisdom was that high voter turnout would put MJI on top. Nobody would have predicted this. And they’re still counting the votes in Seoul, so who knows.
What about Dokdo? How did Dokdo vote?
Arirang gives the weather report for Dokdo along with Seoul, Buseon, Daejeon, and Daegu every night. Tonight they just totally ignored the Dokdo vote and gave coverage to places they hardly mention. Who cares about Jeollabuk, Jeollanam, or Ulsan? Those places don’t even get their weather reported.
A few days ago, I asked if regionalism is still a factor – and TK said not much anymore (I’m paraphrasing).
Mun gets 86% in North Cholla and 89% in South Cholla (92.2% in Gwangju) and Park gets 81% in North Gyungsang and 65% in South Gyungsang.
I’d say regionalism is alive and well.
Well, now I know how my Republican friends felt about a month ago.
Seoul really wasn’t that big of a factor – currently 51.8% for Mun and 47.8% for Park.
Well, if we were pulling red and yellow colored ping pong balls from a burlap bag and ceteris paribus everything else, given that 30% of the Seoul vote moved PGH’s lead from 5% to 3.8%, then it’s not going to be enough.
If it means anything to TK, PGH should provide tons of great blogging material for the next five years.
PS: You have Republican friends?
That’s what Rush Limbaugh said after the last election in the US.
This is what happens to you when you date girls from Daegu. It’s got to be the cute accents.
You ain’t kiddin’.
Some of that regionalism is in the African American vote for Obama territory.
I live in Arizona, Robert.
It’s a wonder that I have non-Republican friends.
S. Korean people establish Park Jeong-Hee’s monarchy by democracy. Why Koreans worship dictators and their decendants?
That crowd control sucks.
I was planning on quitting the politics coverage anyway, after the election.
For a counter, check out the numbers for Busan. RMH won 20% of Busan just 10 years ago.
TK you are grabbing at straws. Another hour? Your prediction of under 2 percent and now PGH up by 3.4 percent with 76% of vote counted. You better be good at bending math rules & I hope you do quite posting about politics.
Is there no police escort? Looks like the wacky races with all the camera bikes riding side by side.
Got a seriously disappointed wife sitting here…
I thought I saw John Linton (AKA 인요한) in the crowd – he was the only westerner that I saw (I say westerner . . . he’s now a Korean citizen).
PGH drew double digits in Jeonnam and Jeonbuk. Wow.
I had the exact same concern as you, here’s what I found out.
Dokdo is not its own voting region. So while they have their own weather, when it comes to voting the poor fisherman and his wife need to go elsewhere to vote.
He’s been campaigning for PGH. Perhaps we have him to thank for netting PGH double-digit numbers in Honam.
I think that it would be interesting if they did an exit poll for the Dokdo vote to see how the voted broken down into demographics like sex, occupation, socio-economic status, and whether the turnout was 0%, 50%, or 100%. I think the higher the turnout, the better for MJI.
See what I mean? This is going to be ongoing for the next five years.
It’s common knowledge that if MJI can get 3 or more votes in Dokdo he can turnaround the results. Not to mention the strength he will have as president when dealing with Japan.
Park has improved upon almost all of Lee’s numbers, even Jeonam/buk
If he carries Dokdo by that much, then people will really be screaming voter fraud.
Hong Joon-pyo is the new governor of Gyeongnam, too. If you’re a Korean conservative, Santa has been very good to you this year.
Lots of sad faces at DUP headquarters. I think I can hear their lamentations from here:
http://news.naver.com/main/president2012/news/read.nhn?mid=hot&sid1=154&cid=909488&iid=563995&oid=031&aid=0000280225
Looking forward to Natasha, the naturalized Korean sex artist, taking it all off. She promised to take it all off and do the naked horse dance if the voter turnout goes over 75%. Everyone’s waiting on her to decide where she’s going to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ebtSZGmSY
Ah, if only Mokpo could have decided this election!
DLB
Well, looks like Korea did two things: create history by choosing a woman president and dodge a major bullet in keeping the communists out of the Blue House. Regionalism is no longer an issue, except for Honam. The rest of the country soundly rejected the Nork 5th column. It is only Honam that supports the DUP and the rest of the leftist gang.
Moon is lisping his concession speech right now.
“Nobody would have predicted this.”Nobody?http://rokdrop.com/2012/12/17/intelligence-agent-cleared-of-online-defamation-of-moon-jae-in/#comment-478674I literally paid attention to this year’s campaign for about 5 minutes.Guess that was enough.
” If he carries Dokdo by that much, then people will really be screaming voter fraud.”
They already are, with DUP supporters screaming unfair voter fraud/violation of election law, at least in the Gyungbuk region. They just “can’t accept losses cooly”, as the modern day Korean saying goes.
PGH has her work cut out for her. Expectations will be high. A lot higher than if Moon got in. Great expectations can lead to hard and troublesome falls. I wish her the best.
Ugh, policies and personal histories and everything else aside, Park is just not a competent or gifted leader. That she surrounds herself with corrupt cronies (not a problem limited to just her though, obviously) does not help. Five years of Park… Well, this is democracy.
And I do not understand the criticism of TK. All of his predictions were quite reasonable, only incorrect, which says more about the Korean media than anything else.
But look at the alternative in Moon Jae-In. If anything, the first televised debate, probably sunk him. After his political partner Lee Jeong-Hee provided an amusing troll show, many voters who were sitting on the fence, probably got turned off by the prospect of this woman’s party possibly sharing in the political win fall along with DUP’s win. Moon looked clueless, according to many viewers, and they worried that the real power of progressives lies with the radicals who could be given influential positions as a reward if DUP came to power. For that, we have to thank Lee Jeong-Hee for doing her service.
Park is no less competent than Moon would be, but the advantage she has is that she is starting from an ideological position that is not utter poison to the ROK. What Moon and his cronies want is what Roh wanted: the destruction of the US-ROK allience, the movement of Seoul under the Beijing umbrella and reconciliation with the DPRK at any price. That the progressives will not accept defeat is obvious, they will wage battles in the streets just like they did against Lee. it didn’t work then and it won’t work now, but they will give it that good old fashioned college try. Democracy to the DUP and the left in general means the same as it does to the Democratic PRK.
SalarymaninSeoul take your imperialism love and shove it. The radicals are not the boogeyman, but hey maybe the Propaganda minister for a military dictatorship is. I support Korea’s re-unification. Both sides would benefit from sharing resources and infrastructure. China is a much better choice of an ally too. The USA is a (slowly) falling superpower on the other side of the Pacific and a power whose involvement in Asia since 1945 has been quite awful. They went too North and got China involved in the Korean War. MacArthur’s stated goal was to initiate a nuclear holocaust to take out the Russians (who were instrumental in beating Nazism) and the Chinese and Koreans once and for all. Your approach is to cause war with N Korea and/or isolate it to the point of complete collapse. The civilians of the North really appreciate having no access to trade and having their industry lie idle.
Karl Rove says that it’s still too early to call it.
I also love how selective Salaryman’s history is. Apparently workers and farmers and students are bad for protesting a president who won an election with the lowest turnout for South Korea’s democratic era and proceeded to behave quite differently from how he had behaved as Seoul mayor. His plundering of the coffers and his revising of the Roh Trade Agreements were just fine for you. What about the impeachment of Roh? Talk about sore losers.
I also admire how you accuse the Southwest of regionalism for voting overwhelmingly liberally or at times radical, and yet when the Southeast does the same it’s okay. The capital region, Jeju, and the Chung-cheong areas had a near 50-50 split and yet you act like everyone in the country wanted Park. If you discount everyone under 60 then you’re right. What we have here are a bunch of dying old people having their last bit of revenge on the uppity youth. Many radical people were killed between 1948-1987 before they got old or left decades ago.
Your nice little Park had some choice words in Suncheon. People ignored her rally so she decided to chide them for being liberals and made implicit threats against them if they voted for the DUP overwhelmingly again. Needless to say she didn’t win any fans there. I wonder if Honam is still bitter about Park Chung-hee and ChunDoo-hwan trying to get Kim Dae-jung killed. I wonder if Park Geun-hye taking money from the man responsible for 5.18 upset them at all.
SalarymaninSeoul I also admire how hypocritical you are in regards to regionalism. Park Geun-hye shows up in Suncheon and no one comes to her rally so she chides and condescends to the locals in her speech and makes implicit threats to blackmail them into voting for her. She also accepted money from the many responsible for 5.18. So they vote against her and they’re being bad regionalists, yet when the Daegu area voted overwhelmingly for Park it’s not regionalism?
You also have a selective memory. MB won an election that was so poorly run it had the lowest turnout ever for Korea’s democratic period. Instead of being a good steward to Korea as he was to Seoul, he changes up Roh’s trade agreements and makes the KOSPI crash. When the working class and students et al protest they’re bing “sore losers” yet when the right wing impeached Roh Mu-hyeon they were not being sore losers??
You also act like the country except for Honam all liked Park when in fact the capital region, Chungcheong and Jeju were all nearly a 50-50 split. Also if people over 65 couldn’t vote the election would have gone to Moon easily. A lot of progressives were killed or driven out of the country from 1948-1987 and of the remaining old people, many are dying yet get to have a bit of vengeance on the uppity young brats. Libertarians like you masquerade as democrats but you’re nothing more than 사대적인 놈.
sorry about that. The comment didn’t show up for some reason so I re-typed it.
Well, almost nobody. Good call on that.
Chung-cheong was a 56/43 split – that’s not a “near 50-50 split.” And Jeju’s population amounts to a small city anywhere else in Korea – so why even mention it?
Mun got the capitol region by a couple of percentage points, and Honam by a landslide. And that’s it. He was clearly rejected everywhere else.
LMB didn’t go far enough to reverse the mess Roh created. The fact that Roh was even given a state funeral should warrent your respect for Lee…Roh did not deserve one.
Moon was rejected everywhere except Honam. Even Seoul came to a pretty close race.
LMB won a low turn out election. Its your team’s fault for not turning out for your candidate. It does not give you the right to wage street battles. Regardless, Park won by a good margin in a high turn out election, but Im sure your side will find some excuse to riot.Poor losers. if Lee was so damn bad, then Park would have been rejected. She got better numbers than Lee. That goes to show that except for the nork sympathizing progs people do not hate Lee. Your position on abandoniong the US-ROK alliance and licking Northern boots is part of the reason normal people rejected you. Now slink off under your commie rock, commie.
Not for the faint of heart–very scary road rage incident in Australia: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50257120/#50257120
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