Protesters gathered at the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) for most of the day yesterday (12 February) to demand a vote recount after abnormalities were reported during the voting process across the country.

Students and members of the public staged a protest in front of Building B in the Chaengwattana Government Complex where the ECT headquarters is located, from 10.00 until around 18.00. They filed a petition with the ECT while several protesters stood holding signs calling for a recount.

Ahead of the protest, activist Sombat Boonngamanong went to the ECT office to demand that the ECT release the vote count from each polling station for transparency. Other politicians, including New Alternative Party’s Mongkolkit Suksintharanon and Movement Party’s KannaveeSuebsang , came to the ECT office during the day to file petitions over abnormalities during the vote counting process.

In the evening, a man named Turn stood in front of the ECT office wearing a blindfold as a symbolic act of protest. Turn said he had just returned from Chonburi, where protesters have been gathering over the past few days at a badminton court to prevent ballot boxes kept there from being removed as they demanded a recount due to concerns about fraud. He said the Chonburi protesters told him they could not trust the election results because they noticed many abnormalities during the vote counting process that made them feel that the ECT has not been following the law. Protesters reported finding ballot counting sheets in the trash. They also found cable ties that were supposed to be for ballot boxes around the badminton court even though polling officials told them that the ballot boxes were tied up with string because they had run out of regulation cable ties.

Turn questioned why voters in Chonburi were made to wait days for the ECT to decide whether to recount the vote and why the ECT, who is directly responsible for the voting process, is turning a blind eye to these abnormalities when voters notice them. He called on the ECT to investigate every constituency where complaints have been made and to stop ignoring corruption, or the public will see them as being complicit.