Over a million people sign petition to remove polling agency

A TWITTER hashtag that translates to #What’sThePointOfHavingElectionCommission? remains the top trending theme in Thailand today (May 8) after rapidly climbing during advance voting yesterday with over a million people having signed an online petition calling for the removal of the election commissioners amid complaints of errors, Sanook.com said.

Throughout yesterday’s advance voting that ended at 5 p.m. netizens aired alleged defects and errors leading to fears of discrepancy in the one person, one vote principle of equal representation in voting.

Netizens who watched the early voting shared their experiences alleging various errors among them officials writing the wrong constituency number on the ballot envelope, a vehicle was spotted bringing elderly voters to the polling station, an official helped a visually-impaired voter mark the ballots and lists of candidates missing at some polling stations.

This led to questions being raised about the work of the polling agency with the Twitter hashtag #What’sThePointOfHavingElectionCommission? quickly turning into the top Twitter theme. Today too netizens are following this theme because they fear the people’s voice will be defeated by illegitimate powers in the society.

An online campaign was also launched to remove the election commissioners who some alleged were the most corrupt in Thai history. As of 8.55 a.m. this morning altogether 1,047,858 people had signed this petition.

CAPTION:

A composite photo showing a person voting, left, and some comments made on Twitter about the Election Commission and the campaign to remove the commissioners. Photo: Sanook.com

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