An election worker holds up a 51.7-centimeter mock ballot for the proportional representation race for the April 10 general elections at the National Election Commission (NEC) office in Incheon, March 27. Yonhap

The number of spoiled ballots for 46 proportional representation races in the April 10 general elections reached a record high, according to the election watchdog, Monday.

According to the information released by the National Election Commission, there were 1,309,931 spoiled ballots, equivalent to 4.4 percent of the total votes for proportional representation.

A ballot is declared spoiled when one or more votes on a formally submitted ballot have been marked in a manner that renders it impossible to determine the voter's intent.

This number of spoiled ballots was the fourth highest, following the People Future Party which garnered around 10.4 million votes, the Democratic United Party which attracted 7.57 million votes and the Rebuilding Korea Party which won 6.87 million votes.

It surpassed that of the Reform Party which won 3.6 percent of the total votes en route to securing two parliamentary seats. Other minor parties — the Green Justice Party and the Saemirae Party — got 2.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.

Since introducing the proportional representation electoral system in the 2020 general elections, the proportion of spoiled ballots has increased significantly.

In the 2012 and 2016 general elections, they made up only 2.2 percent and 2.7 percent of total votes, respectively. But in the 2020 general elections, there were over 1.23 million spoiled ballots, or 4.2 percent.

The system, which was introduced to allocate fewer proportional representation seats to parties that win many constituency seats, is aimed at supporting smaller parties. However, the original intention has been circumvented as major parties have created satellite parties to avoid losing seats, leading to an increase in spoiled ballots.

Due to the ballot paper's length (51.7 centimeters), the proportional representation ballots couldn't be processed by machine. Therefore, personnel had to conduct manual counting. The length of the ballot paper was due to a significant increase in the number of political parties, which reached 38 in total.