EC vows poll will be error-free
Pledge offered after advance vote slip-ups
The Election Commission (EC) has vowed to prevent errors in handling Sunday’s poll while accepting criticism over flaws reported in the advance voting.
EC secretary-general Sawaeng Boonmee, who on Monday led media to inspect the sorting of envelopes to be delivered for a vote count on Election Day, said the poll agency will ensure no errors are made when the nation votes.
He expects a smooth election as the procedures are less complicated and more staff are deployed. On Election Day, voters will cast ballots at their respective polling stations, unlike in advance voting, in which sealed ballots are mailed to their constituencies for a vote count.
The poll agency came under heavy fire over its organisation of the May 7 advance vote. One mistake involved officials at a voting station putting postal instead of electoral constituency codes on some 100 envelopes of cast ballots.
Mr Sawaeng gave assurances that no ballots cast in the advance voting would be lost despite the mistake. The envelopes that contained wrong electoral constituency codes will be checked with the logbook of registered voters, but he noted that checking could be difficult in some cases.
“If the envelopes have no electoral codes, which I think is extremely rare, they will be sent to the EC for checking. In a case like this, checking is complicated,” he said.
Mr Sawaeng dismissed concerns that the mistakes found during the advance voting could lead to a court declaring the general election invalid when asked about such a possibility.
Dhanant Subhadrabandhu, chief executive of Thailand Post, said on Monday that the sorting of ballots from advance voting in the country and overseas is expected to be completed no later than tomorrow. He said these ballots will arrive at their respective constituencies on Friday.
Mr Dhanant said almost 70% of ballots cast by Thai voters overseas arrived with the sorting supervised by a committee comprising the Consular Department, the EC and Thailand Post. He assured that the sorting centre is monitored around the clock, staff are not allowed to carry mobile phones during work, and they are searched when clocking out.
The Pheu Thai and Seri Ruam Thai parties on Monday slammed the EC for its poor handling of the advance voting, pointing to mistakes made by election officials and overcrowding at some voting stations.
Pheu Thai secretary-general Prasert Chantararuangthong said many of the mistakes in the advance voting could have been prevented and strongly urged the EC to address the issues to avoid mistakes on Sunday.
He criticised the glitch in the online advance voter registration system, saying two voters in Bangkok’s Bang Kapi were told that their registration was incomplete and they were not allowed to cast ballots.
Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, a former EC member now chief strategist of the Seri Ruam Thai Party, said the party would propose setting up an ad-hoc committee to probe the EC’s handling of the elections after the House convenes.
He said the planned committee would look into the spending of 5.4 billion baht in organising the elections, the EC’s overseas trips in the past four years, flaws in advance voting and its role in stamping out poll fraud.
Former massage parlour tycoon Chuvit Kamolvisit also posted on Facebook, demanding the EC look into possible irregularities in the advance voting. He said there was an unusually high number of advance voters in Amnat Charoen, Yasothon and Si Sa Ket, and there were reports about the collection of national ID cards from eligible voters.
The hashtag — what is the EC for? — was trending on Twitter on Monday with more than 900,000 tweets, and more than a million people signed up for an online campaign at Change.org supporting the ouster of the poll commissioners.
Meanwhile, the voter turnout in the advance voting in Bangkok was 91.81%, which is higher than the 87% turnout in the early voting for the March 2019 poll, according to City Hall.
