Series of errors hound EC

[webfact]

Series of errors hound EC

By KAS CHANWANPEN 
THE NATION

 

File photo

 

Election agency announces results but quickly takes documents off its website after discrepancies in numbers revealed.

 

IN A BID to ease mounting pressure from politicians and the public, the Election Commission (EC) yesterday released the unofficial election results, revealing the votes each party had gained, but continued to come under criticism over discrepancies in the figures.

 

The agency had previously planned to release the results today, saying it would wait for reports from each constituency and work on the data before making it public. But following heavy criticism of lack of transparency, the EC decided to reveal the results yesterday at a hastily called press conference.

 

 

The figures showed that the pro-junta party Phalang Pracharat had won the popular vote with more than 8.4 million while Pheu Thai came second with 7.9 million votes.

 

Future Forward was third with 6.2 million votes, beating the Democrats who got just 3.9 million.

 

Bhumjaithai was fifth with 3.7 million votes.

 

The voter turnout was at 74.7 per cent with 38.2 million of the more than 51 million eligible voters taking part in the election, the EC said.

 

While the EC may have thought the early announcement would ward off pressure, criticism and the threat of impeachment, public anger continued unabated along with questions of the poll agency’s credibility as the numbers did not add up.

 

The high voter turnout, for instance, was widely questioned. 

 

The EC had declared on Sunday after 90 per cent of votes had been counted that 65.96 per cent of the eligible voters had exercised their voting rights. The figure yesterday shot up by over 8 per cent to 74.69, raising the question of how the figure could rise this high after just 10 per cent more votes were tallied.

 

Several other figures shown in the documents provided by the EC were also inconsistent. 

 

The number of eligible voters, which should have been a clear figure even before Sunday’s election, was found to have increased by over 34,000. On Sunday, the EC had said 51,205,624 people were eligible to vote while the figure provided yesterday was 51,239,638.

 

The media yesterday bombarded the EC with these questions in an online chat room but got no response.

 

Alerted to the discrepancies, the agency quickly removed all the documents related to yesterday’s announcement from its official website. 

 

Politicians from Future Forward and other parties joined the public in calling on the EC to be transparent and reveal voter turnout and polling numbers from every polling station.

 

De facto leader of Pheu Thai Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan yesterday also raised doubts on Facebook, questioning the increase in voter numbers. 

 

“After the polling booths were closed, the EC announced that 33,775,230 million people had turned out. Today, they announced the number to be 38,268,375 million,” she wrote. “In four days, 4,493,145 new ballots have emerged.”

 

Previously, the EC had cited human error for the discrepancies shown in the Rapid Report system and promised the agency would recheck the data before releasing the official election results.

 

The agency had stressed the current MP seat calculation were merely media speculation. The numbers were subject to change especially if by-elections were called in troubled constituencies.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30366745

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-03-29

[leeneeds]

My 7 year old has an abacus she uses very well, and I am sure she could count the correct number of voters with a little effort, 

shameful, that the watch dog do not have anyone that can count past fingers and toes,

heaven forbid having ten people  enter the numbers and ten checking  the data input on todays electronic devices,

[JaiDeeMakh]

No single party can claim a victory. Phalang Pracharat announcing they won and have the right to lead the country is nonsense! 38.2 million voted, and 29.8 voted ANYONE but Phalang Pracharat should be in power.

The only way is a coalition!

P.S 2,130,327 Invalid ballots...Amazing Thailand

[Puchaiyank]

The agency had previously planned to release the results today, saying it would wait for reports from each constituency and work on the data before making it public.

 

Made me laugh!  It is the mysterious smoke and mirrors "work on the data" that has people concerned about the integrity of the results...

[Oziex1]

Errors?? 

[Samui Bodoh]

The EC have thrown the entire credibility of the election into doubt; it wasn't too high to begin with.

 

Malice or stupidity?

 

Accident or by design?

 

And, who will take responsibility for appointing these people? We all know the answer to that.

 

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Samui Bodoh

[harada]

This is what happens when people are appointed to a position solely because of their allegiance to a certain military faction rather than their qualifications and experience.

[Chang_paarp]

As Thailand is (nominally) a parliamentary democracy, it is not the number of votes but the number of seats won that determines the government.

As an example, if all the soldiers in a base vote for one party in the area of their base that will help that party win that seat convincingly, however if the voters in the two seats next door vote for different parties with one party winning both those seats by a slim margin, the number of votes in those 3 electorates many well be in favour of that favoured by the military, but the reality is that  they only won one of the three seats in the example of the party. This does not mean the military favoured party can claim to have won the election.

It is also why PT and others did not "win" in their own right as they chose not to contest all the electorates available to them.

We are getting into the realm of lies, dm lies, and statistics.

[YetAnother]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Election agency announces results but quickly takes documents off its website after discrepancies in numbers revealed.

given general thai eptitude, should still be considered a success

[Denim]

They need to get a qualified chef on the team since their attempts at cooking the books are leaving a bad taste.

[Briggsy]

The ineptitude in rigging the election as shown by the obvious inconsistencies demonstrates 2 things.

 

1. A lack of preparation and planning in the crooked scheme.

2. An arrogance based upon the fact that they feel untouchable.

 

The dubious results will get rammed through with the connivance of the Constitutional Court if needs be.

[Cadbury]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

The figures showed that the pro-junta party Phalang Pracharat had won the popular vote with more than 8.4 million

All these figures prove is that the Phalang Pracharat spent the most money of all the parties in vote buying.

[madmitch]

4 hours ago, JaiDeeMakh said:

P.S 2,130,327 Invalid ballots...Amazing Thailand

And these should be carefully scrutinised by independent third parties. However independent third parties are hard to find under the current administration.

[Grossman]

4 minutes ago, madmitch said:

And these should be carefully scrutinised by independent third parties. However independent third parties are hard to find under the current administration.

 

"To have others observing means the country is having a problem" --Don Pramudwinai. Enough said.

[mfd101]

A necessary condition of successful lying is basic competence.

[SABloke]

Just now, Cadbury said:

All these figures prove is that the Phalang Pracharat spent the most money of all the parties in vote buying.

Not really, it proves that even with contesting in 350 constituencies, they were only able to get slightly more votes than PT, who contested only 250 seats. Imagine if they hadn't (illegally) disolved TRC...

[martinhp]

3 hours ago, harada said:

This is what happens when people are appointed to a position solely because of their allegiance to a certain military faction rather than their qualifications and experience.

Yea and no 

No because it's on purpose 

Nobody even stupid count wrong like this. 

Nobody who have seen the  behaviour and action of this dictatorship would ever vote for them .

Easy have to change reality into this .

And that's why yes they are not skilled enough for it. 

Who knows how many votes they got but not the most of anything. 

The real result is now destroyed so what's next you see the things they say and do .

You normally behave same dictator p as lack of intelligence don't have the words or knowledge to defend his position and action 

Probably as there are non same like now with the EC cheating is not easy .

[candide]

3 hours ago, Briggsy said:

The ineptitude in rigging the election as shown by the obvious inconsistencies demonstrates 2 things.

 

1. A lack of preparation and planning in the crooked scheme.

2. An arrogance based upon the fact that they feel untouchable.

 

The dubious results will get rammed through with the connivance of the Constitutional Court if needs be.

Bunch of incompetent amateurs! They are not even able to rigg it properly!

[neeray]

Word from my Thai contacts is that on close scrutiny, dead people had voted (women prisoners too). And of course, we know who they voted for.

I am wondering if that dead friend of General WATCHMAN voted. I'll bet he did, many times !

[Grossman]

3 hours ago, Briggsy said:

The dubious results will get rammed through with the connivance of the Constitutional Court if needs be.

Exactly, wouldn't be surprised if everything just gets shrugged off again with a BS excuse and rammed through CC, with maybe a little help of a silently passed amendment to the constitution concerning the importance of popular vote. An amendment which was probably available for public viewing and scrutiny in the basement level 3 of the army base 43B (not that 43, the other one!) as announced during one of Prayut's TV interruptions. After all, it's not their fault if you hate Thailand and didn't pay attention to it. Or then just dissolve the competition as an alternative, a decision swiftly passed through rubber stamping, backed up by even more manure.

 

Same old same old. One can only hope that the people have let the junta's obnoxious abuse of everything during the past 5 years pass with not much more than criticism in the hopes of finally getting their voice heard (without attitude adjustment) through a vote at the eventual elections. But now that they completely screwed up the elections too, hopefully there would be a line drawn here and that they simply cannot ram through their sh*t anymore as before. 

 

Sadly.. Seems to have been a bit silent day in the media so far regarding this mess.. I do hope I'm wrong and this is not again some knee jerk ease of pressure just because Prayut told not to cause stress with political reporting or because the recent Good people-Bad People announcement by the army, which was obviously to cause fear through implications that Bad persons don't respect the "higher institution", and everyone knows what might happen in such cases (hint: there's this 2 letter cigarette brand I used to smoke before I quit..).

 

[Denim]

4 hours ago, Cadbury said:

All these figures prove is that the Phalang Pracharat spent the most money of all the parties in vote buying.

No other party had the brazen balls to even try vote buying this time out.

 

Phalang Pracharat were throwing money at voters with gay abandon knowing that they are untouchable, whereas had any other party done so they would face instant disqualification.

 

If the current impasse continues with regard to who will be allowed to form a government , the end result will be that Prayuth and his cronies will continue in power and retain article 44.

[thaiguzzi]

8 hours ago, JaiDeeMakh said:

P.S 2,130,327 Invalid ballots...Amazing Thailand

Yeah, this is one of the big elephants in the room (as well as soldiers being told who to vote for by their commanding officers).

Apparently all the spoiled/invalid ballots are non Junta ones....

Not one spoiled Prayut vote....

Strange that.

Innit?

[sambum]

10 hours ago, harada said:

This is what happens when people are appointed to a position solely because of their allegiance to a certain military faction rather than their qualifications and experience.

And also when people can buy their promotions!

[Khaeng Mak]

For the life of me I cannot see how all of this will not end in violence.

[sambum]

Now that the "results" are in, how long before all the ballot papers are destroyed, therefore making it impossible to check any allegations of wrongdoing? (Surprised if they're not up in smoke already!)

[Khaeng Mak]

4 minutes ago, sambum said:

Now that the "results" are in, how long before all the ballot papers are destroyed, therefore making it impossible to check any allegations of wrongdoing? (Surprised if they're not up in smoke already!)

That's why the announcement of the result has to be delayed.  It takes a long time to fill in that many substitute ballot forms.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Khaeng Mak

[poohy]

These(the EC) lot, make my nice but incredibly dim Thai builder look like Einstein

[Golden Triangle]

This lot (EC) couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, how long have they had to organise this abortion of an election so that their masters win ? and they still cock it up. Everyone can see through their pathetic attempts at trying to project a free and fair election, it was obvious from the outset that it was rigged, arrest them all and chuck em in jail.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Golden Triangle

[scorecard]

4 hours ago, Khaeng Mak said:

That's why the announcement of the result has to be delayed.  It takes a long time to fill in that many substitute ballot forms.

I wonder who the regime is now more afraid of; the red mob or the very successful new FF folks?

[pornprong]

11 minutes ago, scorecard said:

I wonder who the regime is now more afraid of; the red mob or the very successful new FF folks?

I wonder what the TV junta huggers are going to do when Thai politics becomes a battle between 2 progressive parties (Pheu Thai and Future Forward) and the fascist are relegated to history's dustbin.

Edited March 29, 2019 by pornprong