The two-day early voting of South Korea’s 20th general election kicks off Friday, five days ahead of the official polling day, officials said Thursday.

The National Election Commission said Korean nationals are allowed to cast their votes early in any of the 3,511 polls installed at district offices across the country regardless of their permanent addresses. The early voting will run from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Saturday.

Three preliminary voting polls are also installed at Seoul Station, Yongsan Station and Incheon International Airport as part of efforts to encourage voter participation, the authorities said. 

Ballot boxes will only be opened after the election ends.

This is the first time the early voting system has been used for a general election. The system, introduced in 2013 to provide better convenience for voters and to raise the turnout, has previously been run for by-elections and local elections.

Observers have noted that early voting may be a game changer in neck-and-neck districts, citing the consistently rising preliminary voting rate with more young voters taking part.

Voter turnout, which recorded 4.9 percent in the first early polling, jumped to 11.5 percent in local elections in 2014.

In the latest round of early voting in 2014, those in their 20s took part the most, at nearly 16 percent, followed by those in their 60s at 12.2 percent and 50s with 11.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the absentee voting rate reached 41.4 percent with about 64,000 Korean voters. This is 4.3 percentage points down compared to the previous general election in 2012, officials said. Absentee voting was held in 113 countries from March 30 to April 4.

The overall voting rate of the general elections, which reached the highest in 1996 with 63.9 percent, dropped to 46.1 percent in 2008. But it rebounded to 54.2 percent in 2012.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)