Thai's Who Vote

[tavarich]

How do the Thai register to vote? I have been trying to find out from my wife but she doesn't seem to care. I'm trying to get her more involved in the process. Also has there been any numbers crunched as to what percent of the population does vote.

[BambinA]

vote for what? ... like gov. election?

if u mean that the gov. will tell us via city hall.. give us a list.. who has right to vote

[Tarragona]

Also has there been any numbers crunched as to what percent of the population does vote. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think turnout figures are usually given following elections.

[tavarich]

Well I'm going to try this once more. Any natural born Thai people out there, can you tell me a little about the process of registering and voteing.

[lopburi3]

You receive a letter from government at District level prior to elections based on your name in home register that you will be listed for voting. You then do or do not show up on election day and show your ID card which is matched with list and vote. If you do not vote you lose some rights such as standing for public office. Voter turnout it normally quite high. As many people leave there names on family home register upcountry there may be several pre vote dates that you can go upcountry to vote at specified location. During the normal election booths are set up at most all villages for voting.

All Thai who are eligible to vote are required by law to vote. The penalties however are relatively small.

[tavarich]

You receive a letter from government at District level prior to elections based on your name in home register that you will be listed for voting. You then do or do not show up on election day and show your ID card which is matched with list and vote. If you do not vote you lose some rights such as standing for public office. Voter turnout it normally quite high. As many people leave there names on family home register upcountry there may be several pre vote dates that you can go upcountry to vote at specified location. During the normal election booths are set up at most all villages for voting.

All Thai who are eligible to vote are required by law to vote. The penalties however are relatively small.

Thank you that is interesting to me anyway. Thats the kind of information I have come to expect from Thai Visa.

[sonthaya]

You receive a letter from government at District level prior to elections based on your name in home register that you will be listed for voting. You then do or do not show up on election day and show your ID card which is matched with list and vote. If you do not vote you lose some rights such as standing for public office. Voter turnout it normally quite high. As many people leave there names on family home register upcountry there may be several pre vote dates that you can go upcountry to vote at specified location. During the normal election booths are set up at most all villages for voting.

All Thai who are eligible to vote are required by law to vote. The penalties however are relatively small.

How will this affect my wife who is Thai but living in Denmark, she's registred with the Thai embassy here ?

[lopburi3]

Believe some Embassies set up a voting day but you should check with them. As far as penalty for not voting am not sure if there is an exemption system but it is more mai pen rai than a jail time (in other words most people don't worry about it).

[Oishi]

How will this affect my wife who is Thai but living in Denmark, she's registred with the Thai embassy here ?

http://www.mfa.go.th/web/13.php

(1) In case overseas voters are taking up residency in other foreign countries

Notify the Thai embassies/consulates, where voters made registration, to have their names removed from the list of overseas voters in those countries and added in the list of overseas voters in the other countries.

In the 2000 senate election there were 40,690 Thai people registered as eligible overseas voters and 14,521 of them cast their votes. The voter turnout accounted for 35.70 % of the overseas registered voters.

So no worries if your wife is registred at the Royal Thai embassy in København (copenhagen) otherwise she will still have her passport stamps and Danish visa to prove she was abroad.

[meom]

You receive a letter from government at District level prior to elections based on your name in home register that you will be listed for voting. You then do or do not show up on election day and show your ID card which is matched with list and vote.

So how does this "vote buying" what we always hear about work out?

Can they sell there vote to somebody elso who votes on their behalf or is it based on trust (after pay off that they actually vote for the party/person that paid them?

[helitool]

Quote: Can they sell there vote to somebody elso who votes on their behalf or is it based on trust (after pay off that they actually vote for the party/person that paid them?

I asked my wife about this last year and she said that usually the voter is given 10 baht and then they go in and vote for the person that they were told to vote for.

I then asked her why the bribed person could not simply take the money and vote for someone else.

She said that they usually don't do that since it would be dishonist!!

One system that was used in the west was for the briber to pay the voter for his blank ballot then hand him one that had already been marked to go in and deposit in the ballot box. The briber would then premark the blank ballot for the next person he bribed.

Apparently the Thais use the honor system of election fraud

[Phil Conners]

My wife didn't vote for many years mainly because she was listed on the family tabien baen upcountry and it was too inconvenient to go all that way just to vote.

Thais vote where they are registered. Thais can normally only register on land they own, hence many stay registered on the family farm whereever they come from until they are able to buy any small shed offering them the opportunity to change registration. This is unlike most of Europe where you are obliged by law to register on whatever address you reside, wheter rented or owned.

Once you are registered you just go to the voting place for your registration, show your ID and vote. You can ask the local city hall where that is if you don't know.

[Oishi]

Quote: Can they sell there vote to somebody elso who votes on their behalf or is it based on trust (after pay off that they actually vote for the party/person that paid them?

I asked my wife about this last year and she said that usually the voter is given 10 baht and then they go in and vote for the person that they were told to vote for.

I then asked her why the bribed person could not simply take the money and vote for someone else.

She said that they usually don't do that since it would be dishonist!!

One system that was used in the west was for the briber to pay the voter for his blank ballot then hand him one that had already been marked to go in and deposit in the ballot box. The briber would then premark the blank ballot for the next person he bribed.

Apparently the Thais use the honor system of election fraud

We may laugh at the thing with trust but in a small community…and there are many of those around, there is a clear rank order. And people are used to bribe it is not seen as a bribe but more as an advertising or you do something for me and I do something for you kind of thing. The people giving the bribe is not a nobody, but someone you know or who knows your family or friends. So you know that if someone, someday, somehow would find out you had received a 500 baht note and not voted for the person you where told, then…yeah you can guess what can happen in small towns.

But vote buying has been carried out in several ways.

Before, the most common way was to simply give the voter cash, 100 to 500 baht for their vote.

To make sure you would get there votes you would collect their ID card.

And on Election Day you would then have some of your members at the voting venue with the voter registration lists.

When the voters who have received the bribe arrived, their name would be checked against the list and their ID card returned to them just before they where stepping into the voting booth.

Another way to do it is to give the voter a deposit of cash upfront, then, if the political candidate is elected, the rest of the amount will be given to the voter. This is often done in the price area of 100 to 1000 baht.

At the last election there where some speculations and allegations prior to the election so at many venues they had a hard time installing party members to hand back ID card.

Instead someone came up with the smart idea to have the voter taking a picture inside the booth with their mobile camera and show it to a party member after leaving the venue. That story hit the newspapers a couple of days before the election and some of the venues would therefore setup security check to make sure no one would bring a mobile phone inside the booth.

[Plus]

I don't think they send letters telling people they are eligible to vote - you just show up at the polling station and look for your name on the voter list. If you are house registrered in this area your name should be there. Then you vote. You should have your ID card with you, of course.

Penalties for not voting are that you can't participate in any people driven petitions, like the one Sondhi is launching, or the one Sanan has launched against Constituton Court judges, or any people's prosals for law amendments.