BANGKOK, THAILAND – A fierce dispute over barcodes on ballot papers erupted after the 8 February election, raising fears among legal experts that the entire vote could be annulled.
Ex-deputy premier warns of possible annulment
Former deputy prime minister Wissanu Krea-ngam warned in a lecture at the National Institute of Development Administration that barcodes on ballot papers could undermine the secrecy of the vote and retroactively invalidate the 8 February election.
He said the Election Commission (EC) could face legal risks similar to those after the annulled 2006 parliamentary poll.
Constitutional secrecy at the centre of the row
According to Wissanu, there were two possible readings of the law: either the results were no longer considered secret and the EC had violated constitutional Article 85, which requires direct elections, or secrecy was understood as being guaranteed only at the moment voters marked their ballots in the booth, regardless of any later theoretical traceability.
He recalled that the Constitutional Court had already treated the protection of the act of voting as a core principle.
2006 ruling cited as precedent
Wissanu noted that the Constitutional Court invalidated the 2006 election because some booths were positioned so that passers-by could observe voters marking their ballots, thereby creating a precedent for safeguarding the voting act itself.
“If there is any possibility of finding out how someone voted, then it is not secret,”
said Wissanu Krea-ngam, former deputy prime minister.
He stressed that the constitutionally guaranteed secrecy of the ballot had to apply without any time limit.
Potential Constitutional Court review
If the case reached the Constitutional Court, judges could, according to Wissanu, test whether an individual voter could be identified using a barcode, the corresponding counterfoil and the voter list.
If the EC concluded that the ballot was not secret, he believed there would be little choice but to order a nationwide rerun, as the ballot papers were identical everywhere.
Risks and responsibility for the Election Commission
Wissanu pointed out that in 2006 the Election Commission had called a new nationwide vote even though irregularities occurred in only some constituencies.
He cautioned that responsibility in such a case did not rest with a single person and reminded the public that EC members at the time faced criminal charges after the election was annulled.
Bhumjaithai Party defends the use of barcodes
The chief legal adviser of the Bhumjaithai Party, Supachai Jaisamut, rejected the accusations and argued that the constitution required direct and secret elections but did not forbid every technical marking, as long as no link between voter and ballot was possible.
He said the barcodes served solely to prevent forgery and control the distribution of ballot papers, adding that an election could only be declared void in the event of a serious and clearly proven breach of fundamental principles.
People’s Party voices tracking fears
The spokesperson of the People’s Party, Parit Wacharasindhu, warned that the barcodes opened a loophole through which votes could be traced and called on the EC to use uniform ballot papers for the by-elections this Sunday and to refrain from covering the barcodes during the count.
His party also demanded that the Election Commission publish detailed results from individual polling stations in an easily accessible form, after discrepancies emerged in some constituencies between tally sheets and official reports.
Ombudsman flooded with public complaints
In parallel, the Office of the Ombudsman confirmed that it had so far received 28 complaints from the public concerning the legality of the barcodes and the EC’s handling of the election.
These submissions showed that the debate over technical security measures and the protection of ballot secrecy had moved well beyond legal circles into wider public discussion.