The Samut Songkhram election panel has solved the mystery of the premarked ballot papers discovered during advance voting on Sunday - a woman voter claims she misunderstood and thought she was given a whole book of voting papers to mark.
Provincial election panel chairwoman Pinthong Intharasri said on Tuesday that the incident occurred at polling station 2, sited at Samut Songkhram technical college.
Polling station 2 was set up for the convenience of 796 voters from 18 provinces who had registered to cast their ballots in advance in Samut Songkhram. There were four polling stations opened in the province, where 3,199 people in total had registered to vote a week early, on March 17.
It was a busy day and an extra staffer had to be sent to each station to handle all the work. The staff placed books of ballot papers on desks designated for voters from various provinces, Ms Pinthong said.
The mistake occurred when Ms Benjamaporn, a 27-year-old whose surname was withheld, a vendor in Sai Noi district of Nonthaburi, arrived at the desk for Nonthaburi voters. She was the fourth voter to go to the desk, where there was a book of ballot papers. The woman took the whole book, which had 17 ballot papers left, and marked all papers for the candidate of a particular party.
She then returned the whole book to a polling official responsible for putting the ballots in envelopes. The official took the top marked ballot from the book and put it into an envelope, and asked the woman to return the book with the remaining ballots to the desk.
However, the official did not notice that the remaining 16 papers had all been marked, the election panel chairwoman explained.
Only when other voters came to cast their ballots at the same desk did the official realise that all the remaining ballots were already marked.
The provincial panel delivered replacement ballot papers to polling station 2 within 90 minutes, and voting continued as normal. The pre-marked ballots were later destroyed, Ms Pinthong said
Polling staff had filed a complaint with Muang police station in Samut Songkhram, where Ms Benjamaporn was later interrogated.
The woman insisted she had no intention to destroy or damage the voting papers. She had marked all the ballots innocently, thinking that was what she was supposed to do after being given the whole book of ballots. She was adamant she had not intended to break the law.
The provincial panel chairwoman said Ms Benjamaporn had been charged with damaging ballot papers, a violation of the election law.
The offence carries a jail term of up to five years and/or maximum fine of 100,000 baht. The court would also be asked to revoke her election rights for 10 years, she said.
“An initial investigation shows the woman had no intention to act dishonestly. She did not take all masked ballots out of the polling station, but returned them all to officials. When police came to her house, she was puzzled and thought election officials gave her the whole book to mark. However, the election panel has already filed a complaint against her,’’ Ms Pinthong said.