Politicians warned against registration venue parades
The Election Commission (EC) has joined forces with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) to set up an “e-war room” to monitor upcoming election campaign activities online.
EC secretary-general Sawaeng Boonmee said yesterday that this joint effort was aimed at preventing and controlling any illegal online campaigns while also analysing the trend of those actions.
Any illegal action detected by the war room, including vote selling and power abuse, will lead to that content’s termination and legal action against the poster, Mr Sawaeng added.
Separately, EC representative Thitiset Nutchanard said the results of the Bangkok MP candidate registration yesterday were satisfactory.
Yesterday was the first day of registration and the Prime Ministerial Candidate Declaration, which will be held nationwide until Friday.
To prevent any of the errors detected during the 2019 election from reoccurring, Mr Thitiset said that the EC had set up teams of observers to inspect registration venues nationwide.
The main problem that the observers found, according to Mr Thitiset, is that some candidates forget to bring some documents, such as a registration certificate, to the registration venue.
The candidates immediately got their numbers after registration, and the EC will take seven days after their registration day to conduct a background check on those registered candidates before publishing the candidates’ names, he said.
He also said that the committee’s other concern was the campaign parade at the registration venues, which might be illegal according to the Election Law.
The parade, according to previous court warrants, is considered a persuasive campaign method, which is illegal, the EC’s announcement added.