Voter turnout at 15% as of 11 am

Turnout in Wednesday's local elections stood at 15 percent as of 11 a.m., up 3 percentage points from the previous elections in 2022, the election watchdog said.

The National Election Commission (NEC) said 6.71 million out of 44.64 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, with the southeastern city of Daeju recording the highest turnout of 18.9 percent each so far.

The southwestern city of Gwangju had the lowest turnout at 10.3 percent.

Seoul's turnout stood at 14.3 percent, while turnout in the surrounding Gyeonggi Province was at 14.5 percent and that in Incheon, west of the capital, at 14.2 percent.

The 23.51 percent turnout from last week's two-day early voting will be included in the overall turnout tally starting at 1 p.m. The early voting turnout was the highest recorded for local elections.

Voting will continue until 6 p.m.