Thai court accepts petition challenging legality of election ballots

[BANGKOK] The Constitutional Court of Thailand on Wednesday (Mar 18) accepted for consideration a petition challenging the legality of the election ballots used in February’s polls.

The Election Commission has been given 15 days to provide clarification, it said.

The court did not specify any other orders, meaning that Thursday’s planned vote by the new parliament on a prime minister would go ahead.

The complaints alleged that the barcodes and QR codes on the ballots could potentially be used to identify which candidate and party a voter had chosen.

This undermines the secrecy of the ballot, said the Office of the Ombudsman, which filed the petition, and is an independent constitutional body in Thailand.

The commission has said that the barcodes were included for security purposes and that identifying a voter would require access to the upper half of the ballots, which had been securely stored.

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Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai Party had a decisive win in February’s election.

He plans to form a coalition government that would control 290 of the 499 seats currently occupied in the new parliament. REUTERS