Under-fire EC takes blame for delayed ballot delivery

[webfact]

Under-fire EC takes blame for delayed ballot delivery

By Kas Chanwanpen 
The Nation

 

 

Commission backtracks after saying delayed advance votes would be voided

 

BALLOTS CAST by Thais living in New Zealand last weekend did not arrive in time to be counted as part of yesterday’s tally. 

 

Election Commission (EC) deputy secretary-general Nath Laosisawakul had earlier warned that advance ballots not shipped to Thailand before vote counting began yesterday would be declared void. 

 

However, the commission backtracked after critics spoke up saying it should take responsibility for the misplaced ballots and tardy deliveries.

 

EC secretary-general Jarungvith Phumma admitted after polling ended yesterday and counting began that about 1,500 ballots from New Zealand would not arrive in time. He put the tardiness down to complications with air cargo and delays involving three airlines. These problems arose despite the ballots being shipped from New Zealand last Wednesday. 

 

Jarungvith said commissioners would convene today to resolve the matter. “The EC will take responsibility,” he told reporters.

 

Ballot papers cast in the recent advance voting from overseas will be considered invalid if they are not delivered to their intended polling stations for vote counting before the general election’s closing time of 5pm, a senior election official said yesterday.

 

The last batch of ballot papers cast by Thai expatriates living overseas arrived in Thailand by air yesterday morning, EC deputy secretary-general Nath said.

 

He said those ballot papers would then be transported by Thailand Post to the constituencies of the voters for counting along with other votes cast yesterday in the final leg of voting.

 

There was a delay in the transport of the last cargo of ballots from abroad as an international connecting flight to Bangkok was missed, Nath said.

 

“We expect the last batch of cast ballots to be delivered by 5pm. The local EC officials and polling station officials are responsible for accepting the ballot papers [from overseas]. If the ballots are not delivered within the time frame set by the law, they may be considered invalid. This depends on the facts and the situation,” the senior EC official said.

 

Advance voting for Thai expats living abroad was held between March 4 and 16 at the Kingdom’s 94 embassies and consulates in 67 countries.

 

Out of 119,232 eligible voters registered for advance voting, 101,003 – or 84.7 per cent – cast their ballots. That was a new record for voter turnout in advance voting overseas.

 

The Thai consulate in Sydney, Australia, saw the highest number of voters for advance voting – 8,915 people, or 86.9 per cent of the 10,256 people registered.

 

That was followed by the Thai Embassy in London, which saw 7,213 voters turning out, accounting for 91 per cent of the people registered for advance voting. 

 

The Thai Embassy in Tokyo was third with a voter turnout of 5,458, or 90.3 per cent, followed by the Los Angeles consulate (5,043 voters or 88.9 per cent), and the Canberra Embassy (5,042 voters or 85.1 per cent). 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/politics/30366479

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-03-25

[newcomer71]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Jarungvith said commissioners would convene today to resolve the matter. “The EC will take responsibility,” he told reporters.

This is the joke of the year... ????????????

[Srikcir]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

the commission backtracked after critics spoke up saying it should take responsibility for the misplaced ballots and tardy deliveries.

Within hours of the General Election:

EC Secretary General Pol Gen Jarungvith Phumma admitted reported mistakes in the delivery of early voting ballots where some ballot boxes were delivered to wrong locations.

Apparently he also failed to think about timely return of ballots from Thai voters in foreign countries.

Thank Prayut for such an outstanding new EC that was chosen by Prayut's appointed NLA.

[boonrawdcnx]

Junta puppets playing dirty games! Cheating so much in the elections that the maths did not add up in the end - what a farce!

Can somebody explain this?

FFP candidate is in the lead with 35k votes - 2 hours later he has suddenly only 7k votes !?

In Thailand -as the counting progresses - they seem to deduct votes instead of adding them on.

And oh surprise in favor of the junta party !

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

 

[Grossman]

24 minutes ago, boonrawdcnx said:

FFP candidate is in the lead with 35k votes - 2 hours later he has suddenly only 7k votes !?

In Thailand -as the counting progresses - they seem to deduct votes instead of adding them on.

 

Don't be silly. It's just a misunderstanding; the turnout numbers for the constituency started looking a bit skewed after adjusting the numbers of the good candidates, so of course you have to deduct it from somewhere so that you don't end up with a 100%+ turnout, which might need to be explained. This was not supposed to be shown in the realtime counting, apologies for this technical glitch causing confusion. Move along.

 

Now, if you have to do a deduction in order to get the totals balanced, why would you deduct anything from the good votes when there are plenty of bad votes available? Do you want the bad candidates to win? 

[chama]

Oh come on, it takes time to pre-load a ballot box!

[Fex Bluse]

So typical of Thais to be unable to manage tasks any more complex than grilling pork or mashing some somtam. 

 

No surprises from me. I never make the mistake of overestimating their future performance. 

 

The country and people are simply not ready for most of the modern world.