Pheu Thai seeks court ruling on QR code election issue

The Pheu Thai party is seeking a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the validity of the February 8th general election due to the use of QR and bar codes on ballot sheets.

Chusak Sirinil, deputy leader of the party, stated that they are in the process of gathering information to support a petition for submission to the ombudsman, asking the Constitutional Court to rule on the matter, which has attracted widespread criticism, particularly towards the Election Commission.

Chusak argued that if the bar or QR codes can be traced to the identities of individual voters and the parties or candidates they voted for, the voting process would not be confidential, thus violating the constitution. The charter stipulates that voting must be direct and confidential.

Meanwhile, former election commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn stated that the use of bar and QR codes on the ballots – one for constituency elections, one for party-list elections, and one for the referendum on amending the Constitution – could violate Article 85 of the Constitution if the codes are traceable to voters.

This adds to the complaints of election rigging directed at the Election Commission.

Somchai pointed out that the Election Commission spent a significant amount of taxpayer money—around 204 million baht—on printing the three types of ballots.

He noted that the pink ballots cost 1.40 baht each, the green ones 1.20 baht, and the yellow ones 1 baht. Three printing houses were hired by the EC to print a total of 56 million ballot sheets for each type.

He explained that the high cost of the ballot sheets was due to special features designed to prevent forgery, including delicate patterns, invisible watermarks visible only under UV light, and miniature code numbers visible only through a magnifying glass.

Somchai stated that the bar and QR codes were also intended to prevent forgery and were not meant to trace individual voters.

EC Deputy Secretary-General Pasakorn Siripakayamorn clarified that the bar or QR code on the ballot sheets is a security measure intended to identify the polling station they came from and cannot be traced back to the voters.