New Zealand ballots arrived too late for ‘the draw’, says election commissioner

[snoop1130]

New Zealand ballots arrived too late for ‘the draw’, says election commissioner

By Kas Chanwanpen 
The Nation

 

 

Election Commission (EC) member Pakorn Mahannop said on Tuesday that the 1,500 or so ballots that arrived from New Zealand can be compared to raffle coupons that have arrived too late and cannot possibly be included in the draw.

 

“You cannot ask us to count it after the process has already been completed,” the commissioner said in a lecture he was delivering to sub-committees investigating election cases on Tuesday. “That’s why we ruled that they could not be counted. It was not a question of them being valid or invalid.” 

 

The ballots from New Zealand that did not make it to their home constituencies in time to be counted along with other ballots has been salt in the wound for the agency. Already under fire for questionable effectiveness in holding the election, the EC was roasted further for its handling of the problem with the New Zealand ballots.

 

The public has also been irritated by the unprecedented terms used to describe mishaps, such as “not invalid but uncountable” in the case of these ballots.

 

Pakorn, however, said that the agency could not rule whether these ballots were voided or not, adding that people will always disagree and this can lead to the entire election being invalidated.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30366991

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-04-02

[billd766]

Of course the votes should have been included. If they were in a diplomatic bag and still sealed they should have been counted.

 

The4 EC should have been contact with the embassy in NZ asking where the bag was and why it wasn't collected earlier.

 

As for describing the votes as raffle tickets he should have been censured on the spot and given 5 minutes to resign. No resignation after 5 minutes. Fired.

 

But I suppose that he was only following orders from higher up the food chain.

[skills32]

14 minutes ago, billd766 said:

Of course the votes should have been included. If they were in a diplomatic bag and still sealed they should have been counted.

 

The4 EC should have been contact with the embassy in NZ asking where the bag was and why it wasn't collected earlier.

 

As for describing the votes as raffle tickets he should have been censured on the spot and given 5 minutes to resign. No resignation after 5 minutes. Fired.

 

But I suppose that he was only following orders from higher up the food chain.

 

 

The airline notified the commission on sat evening that  Thai had the votes for the election comm to pick up and this did not happen.

 

[sammieuk1]

As a rule of thumb if the vote ends up making a general PM its legit if not its void and can be applied to all discrepancy's  ????

[Aussie999]

"The ballots from New Zealand that did not make it to their home constituencies in time to be counted ," so, whose fault then... let me guess... EU.

[Artisi]

52 minutes ago, billd766 said:

Of course the votes should have been included. If they were in a diplomatic bag and still sealed they should have been counted.

 

The4 EC should have been contact with the embassy in NZ asking where the bag was and why it wasn't collected earlier.

 

As for describing the votes as raffle tickets he should have been censured on the spot and given 5 minutes to resign. No resignation after 5 minutes. Fired.

 

But I suppose that he was only following orders from higher up the food chain.

Resign or be fired, solly - no do, face lot too mut. 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Artisi

[scorecard]

43 minutes ago, skills32 said:

 

 

The airline notified the commission on sat evening that  Thai had the votes for the election comm to pick up and this did not happen.

 

That's nice but surely the point is that the EC / the foreign affairs ministry etc should have been very actively continuously monitoring where the diplomatic bags were and taking very prompt actions to get them urgently to their destination.

 

The bag sitting at Thai and ignored is totally inexcusable no matter how you look at it.

 

Another point, it was in a twitter feed yesterday morning that around 2 dozen bags forwarded to local polling centres didn't arrive, most because the address was wrong or totally confusing.  

 

How can so many (or any) of the bags have a wrong / totally confusing address. Stand up the EC fool in charge of this process and be fired and charged with dereliction.

 

I wonder if the appropriate officials at each polling center were told to be expecting abga and a tracking number ow whatever. Is this did happen (and it should have happened then why didn't the local officials do something to find the bags?

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by scorecard

[rkidlad]

would love to see those ballots. Wonder who the Thai expats in New Zealand mostly voted for? ????

[metisdead]

Troll posts have been removed. 

[pornprong]

18 minutes ago, rkidlad said:

would love to see those ballots. Wonder who the Thai expats in New Zealand mostly voted for? ????

No need to wonder, there's only two possibilities:

1. Palang Pracharat

2. Spoiled ballot

[Bluespunk]

2 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Pakorn, however, said that the agency could not rule whether these ballots were voided or not,

Why?

[Cadbury]

44 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:

Why?

Most were not in favour of the Palang Pracharat Party so they had to be voided. 

However many uncounted votes have now been found under the sofa of the Officers Mess and have been recognised as being official and are now being included in the count.

[billd766]

2 hours ago, rkidlad said:

would love to see those ballots. Wonder who the Thai expats in New Zealand mostly voted for? ????

I have a fair idea who they didn't vote for, which could be a reason why they were ignored.

[naboo]

4 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

adding that people will always disagree and this can lead to the entire election being invalidated.

A convenient get out of jail free card for someone there.

 

We night need an election cancelled should there be an issue over these votes. Convenient.

[ChipButty]

1 hour ago, naboo said:

A convenient get out of jail free card for someone there.

 

We night need an election cancelled should there be an issue over these votes. Convenient.

No, that would mean no beer again

[Chang_paarp]

1500 votes would not make a huge difference one way or another to the result. However the grief it has caused due to the laziness of some EC staff far exceeds the importance of the 1500 votes. A smarter bureaucrat would have quietly collected them when they established that something had gone wrong and included them saying it is all in the name of democracy. The intransigence of the EC has not done anything to bolster the legitimacy of the result.

[JAG]

9 hours ago, naboo said:

A convenient get out of jail free card for someone there.

 

We night need an election cancelled should there be an issue over these votes. Convenient.

Yes, is an idea being floated, I wonder?

[natway09]

Let's clear this up.

They arrived in plenty of time, the EC nominated courier forgot to pick them up

 

[Oziex1]

The EC bringing unity to Thailand. 

[Ulic]

The headline needs to be changed. The ballots arrived on time. Incompetent EC officials just didn't bother to pick them up until after the poles were closed and the deadline had passed. 

[GinBoy2]

My wife, who did vote here in the United States, shrugged her shoulders with the comment;

"Of course they excluded as many overseas votes as they thought they could could get away with.

Since we can see and are free to make our own decisions" 

Wise woman my wife!

[Odysseus123]

21 minutes ago, GinBoy2 said:

My wife, who did vote here in the United States, shrugged her shoulders with the comment;

"Of course they excluded as many overseas votes as they thought they could could get away with.

Since we can see and are free to make our own decisions" 

Wise woman my wife!

"Wise woman my wife!"

 

Very much so..

 

What was interesting here (Oz) was that there was a great deal of discussion about the election-then a lot of enthusiasm when a certain lady tossed her hat into the ring..

 

Then they all went silent-as if a door had been slammed shut.

[GinBoy2]

14 minutes ago, Odysseus123 said:

"Wise woman my wife!"

 

Very much so..

 

What was interesting here (Oz) was that there was a great deal of discussion about the election-then a lot of enthusiasm when a certain lady tossed her hat into the ring..

 

Then they all went silent-as if a door had been slammed shut.

They self censor, especially if they are only temporary residents overseas and plan to go home.

 

They all know what happens to Thai's overseas who criticize the regime du jour

 

The Thai lady in London is a case in point. She can never return to Thailand as it stands. 

 

Charged with 112, Computer crime, sedition, it goes on and on

 

The very fact that in the expat community there was hilarity watching, he who is not the be mentioned, walking around a mall in Munich in a crop top, yet everything was blocked in Thailand tells you a lot.

 

 

[Fex Bluse]

On 4/2/2019 at 5:33 PM, snoop1130 said:

The ballots from New Zealand that did not make it to their home constituencies in time to be counted along with other ballots has been salt in the wound for the agency.

Of course, who knows what the real reason is. 

 

We now have confirmation (as if any were needed) of the "Good People's" view on foreign ideas. 

 

"In a strong statement, the Army commander denounced foreign-educated individuals for bringing their extreme leftist ideology"