BANGKOK, March 18 (Reuters) – Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday accepted for consideration a petition challenging the legality of election ballots used in last month’s polls.
The Election Commission has been given 15 days to provide clarification, the court said in a statement. It did not specify any other orders, meaning Thursday’s planned vote by the new parliament on a prime minister would go ahead.
The complaints alleged that barcodes and QR codes on the ballots could potentially be used to identify which candidate and party a voter had chosen, undermining the secrecy of the ballot, according to the Office of the Ombudsman, which filed the petition.
The commission has said 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.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai Party had a decisive win in February’s election and he plans to form a coalition government that would control 290 of the 499 seats currently occupied in the new parliament.
(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng, Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Martin Petty)
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