North Korea Holds An "Election"

Today North Korea held an election which will be used to select members for its National Council naturally the outcome of this election has already been determined.  Sure the old vote early and often method can used along with the stuffing of ballot boxes but why go through all that trouble when you can just force the voter to cast a ballot for the parties chosen candidate.  It saves the authoritarian government a lot of time.

Polling stations have opened in North Korea as voters started to approve their first national council in five years amid a holiday atmosphere. 

Sunday's election doubles as a national headcount and may offer clues to power shifts in Pyongyang, AFP news agency reported.

The vote to elect representatives for the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) was taking place as scheduled, the state-run KCNA news agency said, adding that voter turnout was a whopping 91 percent as of 2pm (05:00 GMT).

Those who are ill or infirm and cannot travel to polling stations are casting votes at special "mobile ballot boxes," it added.

Apart from the physical casting of votes, there is nothing democratic about the ballot, with only one approved candidate standing for each of the 687 districts.

State newspapers on Sunday stressed it was the duty of "every single person" to vote in the poll.