The Democratic Party of Korea approved a revision to its party rules to implement a preferential voting system in the party leader primary at the national convention in Aug.
Rep. Choi Ki-sang met with reporters after the Party Affairs Committee convened on the afternoon of the 14th and said, "We clarified preferential voting and a runoff as the methods for conducting a runoff." He added, "Of the 71 committee members, 52 attended, and it was not unanimous."
Preferential voting is a method in which, when there are two or more candidates, voters rank all candidates from first to last. The count is first conducted using only first-preference votes, and if a candidate wins a majority at this stage, the winner is decided immediately. If no one wins a majority, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and the ballots that selected that candidate as second preference are redistributed to the remaining candidates to determine the final winner.
In effect, this system makes second-preference votes decisive. In this party leader election, two candidates, Kim Min-seok and Song Young-gil, from the pro-Myung (pro-Lee Jae-myung) faction are running, leading some to analyze that, after vote dispersion, the pro-Myung faction could benefit from consolidating second-preference votes. Accordingly, the pro-Cheong (pro-Jeong Cheong-rae) faction had opposed adopting the preferential voting system, but at the supreme council meeting on the morning of the day, an agreement was reached to implement the preferential voting system instead of introducing the youth supreme council member system.
The Democratic Party reconvened the National Convention Preparatory Committee (NCPC) on the day following approval of the party rule revision and finalized the primary rules reflecting the preferential voting system for electing the leadership. In addition, the NCPC set the convention slogan as "Democratic Party for all, irreplaceable Republic of Korea." Also, regarding the failure to introduce the youth supreme council member system in the leadership, it approved an opinion including a supplementary view that the system should be introduced immediately after the party leader is elected.
Meanwhile, rules related to the preferential vote counting process were also updated. Previously, the scope of the ban on disclosing results was defined as "intermediate counting results," which led to differing interpretations on whether to disclose the first-place vote share. Accordingly, the Democratic Party revised the phrasing to "intermediate calculation process" and plans to disclose the first-place candidate's vote share during the regional tour primaries.
The Democratic Party will confirm the NCPC's resolutions at the supreme council meeting on the morning of the next day (the 15th) and complete final approval through the Party Affairs Committee in the afternoon.