The Ombudsman has petitioned the Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of barcodes and QR codes printed on ballot papers for the latest general elections, amid concerns these compromise ballot secrecy. The Court will decide on Wednesday (18 March) whether to accept the case.

The move followed dozens of complaints, filed by the general public and politicians, against the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) over the controversial barcodes and QR codes printed on ballot papers in the 8 February general elections, according to several Thai news outlets.

Amid growing concerns about electoral transparency, barcodes and QR codes were found on the ballot papers for both constituency and party list MPs. When scanned, they yielded different codes for each ballot paper, with one letter and eight digits.

According to the Constitution, the elections must be carried out by direct suffrage and secret ballot. Most of the complainants argued it could make ballots traceable and compromise ballot secrecy.

The complaints in this case cannot be directly filed with the Constitutional Court and must first be reviewed by the Ombudsman. If sufficient grounds are found, the case will be forwarded to the Constitutional Court.

The Ombudsman revealed that it had received 21 complaints asking the Constitutional Court to rule whether the ballot design violated the constitutional principle of ballot secrecy.

On 10 March, the Ombudsman resolved to forward the case to the Constitutional Court, noting that there were grounds to question whether the ECT infringed on voters’ rights and freedoms, potentially violating ballot secrecy.

The Court will decide on Wednesday (18 March) whether to accept the case.

If it does, its ruling could serve as a standard for ballot design in future elections. Moreover, if it later rules that the barcodes and QR codes violated the Constitution, the election could be declared void.

The ECT previously clarified that the barcodes were used to track the polling stations where the ballots were distributed, helping to prevent ghost voting and electoral fraud.

In addition, the ECT said the law allows it to prescribe codes or marks on ballot papers as a safeguard against “forgery.” It admitted that barcodes could be used to trace ballot stubs, but said it would only do so if a complaint were filed and the ECT needed to identify the polling station where the issue arose.

It claims that tracking to identify individual voters is impossible, as doing so would require access to additional elements, including ballot stubs and voter name lists, which are kept separately.

Polling station staff confirmed that ballot stubs and name lists are kept separately from ballot boxes, but added that of these items are eventually stored in the same location for convenience in investigating if an issue with election results arose.

Critics argue that a secret ballot means that no one, not even the ECT, should be able to trace and identify voters.

In addition to complaints over ballot secrecy, complaints over electoral transparency have also been raised.

The ECT, which was allocated over 7.8 billion of taxpayers’ money to stage the election, is currently facing legal challenges in three courts— the Criminal, Administrative, and Constitutional Courts— over the integrity of the elections.