Advance voting for the 2026 general election took place on Sunday (1 February). It has not been smooth sailing: many voters reported that they experience a myriad of issues, from polling officials writing down the wrong constituency code on the ballot envelopes to missing candidate information.

Voters from Khonkaen during advance voting in Bangkok's Chatuchak district on Sunday (1 February)

The legal watchdog NGO iLaw posted on its Facebook page that a voter at a polling station in Nonthaburi found that polling officials were writing the constituency number for that polling station on the ballot envelope instead of their home constituency. When they complained, polling officials told them that they were instructed to write down the constituency number for that polling station, so the voter had to hand in their ballot. However, after searching for more information and speaking to the polling station director, they learned that the constituency number on the envelope should be the voter’s home constituency.

iLaw said that polling officials later apologized that said that they will correct the constituency number after the poll closed.

Meanwhile, Sirivich Thongkum, former Move Forward Party MP candidate for Phetchabun, posted on his Facebook page that he was voting out-of-constituency at an unspecified polling station. He noticed that a polling official wrote the wrong constituency code on the ballot envelope, but the official insisted the code was already correct. He then told the official that he is exercising his right as a stakeholder to raise an issue about an abnormality in the voting process, after which he was allowed to speak to the election sub-committee responsible for the polling station. It was concluded eventually that the polling official had misunderstood and written the wrong code on all the ballots in the box at the time. The code was corrected after the poll closed.

On Sunday afternoon (1 February), iLaw released the list of constituency codes it had received from the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT). The post now has over a million shares on Facebook. Numerous commenters under the post said that polling officials wrote the wrong number on their ballot envelopes. Some reported that they raised the issue at the poll, but officials insisted they were right and refused to correct the envelope. Many expressed suspicion that the mistakes were intentional and an attempt at vote manipulation, while others wrote that this is a reason to vote in favour of a new constitution in the upcoming referendum to ensure that the ECT can be held accountable.

iLaw issued a statement on Sunday night (1 February) raising concerns that incorrect constituency codes could mean that ballots are delivered to the wrong polling station, leading to mistakes when counting votes. It noted that polling officials made similar mistakes during the 2023 general election, and that officials did not read out the constituency code before putting the envelope into the ballot box although the ECT had said on 16 January that officials must do so to prevent a repeat of mistakes made during the 2024 general election. Voters are also concerned that their ballots would be voided because officials corrected the constituency code by crossing out the wrong number and writing the new one.

iLaw demanded a public apology from the ECT. Since polling officials are making the same mistakes they make in the last general election, iLaw said, it shows that the ECT’s training and supervision systems are ineffective.

It demanded that the ECT disclose the number of ballot envelopes where the constituency codes have been corrected, and must conduct an investigation to reassure voters that their ballots are being sent to the correct polling stations. It must also set up an inquiry committee if there are complaints regarding ballot numbers.

Noting that citizen observers could prevent mistakes, iLaw demanded that the ECT facilitate citizen observation of the voting and vote counting process.

In at least one case reported by iLaw, voters were turned away at the poll and told that their polling station was at a different location. A voter told iLaw that she was taking her grandfather, who is from Songkhla, to vote early in Nakhon Si Thammarat. She checked the Department of Provincial Administration website for the poll location, but when they got there, she was told by a polling official that the polling station for voters from Songkhla was somewhere else. She also said that she tried to show the official information on her phone, but the official did not look at it and was rude to her and her grandfather. She did not want trouble and decided to take her grandfather home without voting.

With 10 minutes to go before the poll closed for advance voting, voters run to their polling stations at Chandrakasem Rajabhat University in Bangkok.

There are also other issues. Chonlanat Koaykul, People’s Party MP candidate for Bangkok’s 28^th constituency, posted on her Facebook page that her team found that the QR code on the display board in front of the polling station at Rajasitharam Technical College links to candidate information from 2023. She later posted that a man alleging to be working for the ECT called the local administration official and asked to speak to her team at the polling station. The caller said that he does not believe a mistake was made that threatened to sue her and members of her team.

ECT Secretary General Sawaeng Boonmee apologized for the mistake during a press conference. He insisted, however, that the man who threatened Chonlanat’s team member is not from the ECT because ECT officials are trained to serve citizens.

Khaosod Online reported that Aranya Pornchaiya, Deputy Permanent Secretary for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, said that officials took the QR code from the ECT’s website. After being notified that the QR code linked to candidate information from 2023, the officials replaced the QR code with one linking to the correct site. She said that it was unintentional and that officials were at fault in that they did not check every QR code on the display board.

PPTV reported today (2 February) that Chonlanat has filed a police complaint against the ECT for malfeasance over the QR code blunder.

Meanwhile, the profile documents for several People’s Party candidates were missing from polling station display boards. Chorayuth Chaturapornprasit, People’s Party MP candidate for Bangkok’s 3^rd constituency, posted that he was told by a voter that his profile was missing from the display board in front of a polling station in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Pakchong district. He was also told that, when voters asked polling officials about the missing document, they were told that he was disqualified when he was not.

A user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote that he went to the polling station after he heard about the missing document. He alleged that, according to an official, they put the document up at 15.00 – two hours before the poll closed – and that the paper had been stuck to another document, so they had not put it up.

Chorayuth posted on his Facebook page again today (2 February) that he is pressing charges against the polling officials in Pakchong for not putting up his profile document and for falsely claiming that he was disqualified.

Terdsak Pangsan, a People’s Party MP candidate for Nakhon Phanom’s 1^st constituency, posted on his Facebook page that several voters informed him that his profile document was missing from polling stations in Nakhon Pathom.

The candidate profile for Tipa Paweenasatien, People’s Party candidate for Lampang’s 1^st constituency, was also missing from several polling stations in Chonburi, Chiang Rai, Nakhon Pathom, and Ayutthaya. Polling officials reportedly claimed she was disqualified when she was not.

Mono News reported that Tipa has filed a police complaint against the local ECT officials, while Thongnet Dujai, Director of the Lampang Election Commission Office, said that officials had made mistakes when sending candidate profiles, but that they had sent an electronic file to polling stations after learning of the issue.

Khaosod Online reported that Sawaeng said during a press conference that there was a mistake: an election commission official in Lampang sent two profiles of one candidate to polling stations in Chonburi but did not send Tipa’s information. He insisted that it was not an attempt to undermine her and that the mistake has been corrected.

The People’s Party will be petitioning the ECT for an investigation into mistakes made during advance voting and the dismissal of any polling official found to have committed misconduct during the voting process. The party said that it may also press charges against polling officials for misconduct.

The profile document for Surachart Chanpradit, a Pheu Thai MP candidate for Si Saket, also went missing from a polling station in Nakhon Pathom. Meanwhile, Paisan Ruengrit, a Democrat MP candidate for Rayong’s 1^st constituency, said that his profile document was covered with the picture of another candidate on a display board in front of a polling station in Nonthaburi. Polling stations also reportedly told voters he had been disqualified.

As of Monday (2 February), the election watch platform Vote62 said that it received 1005 complaints from voters; 637 said that polling officials wrote down the wrong constituency code on the ballot envelope, 93 said polling officials did not sign on the envelope seal, 55 said they registered for advance voting, but their names were missing from the list at the poll, 46 said there were no candidate information display boards at their polling station, 46 reported mistakes on the display board, and 35 said they were given ballots for the wrong constituency.