BMA to test AI system and CCTV ahead of general election
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is preparing to conduct a test-run today of the artificial intelligence (AI) system for tabulation of ballots collected at the upcoming general election on May 14, as well as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and motion detectors to monitor the collection of ballot boxes.
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt yesterday chaired the meeting of BMA department heads at Bangkok City Hall where he spoke about the BMA’s preparation to support the upcoming 2023 general election on May 14. The BMA has prepared various aspects, such as the polling stations which are now ready for inspection by the Election Commission.
The local registration offices in each district have also announced and displayed lists of eligible voters for public inspection, along with notifications sent to the households of eligible voters. As for the personnel who will be involved in the election, the Election Commission (EC) has completed the appointment and training of 60,000 people who will participate in the election operations, in each of the polling units.
The measures to be implemented in Bangkok include the installation of 24-hr CCTV and motion detectors at voting ballot boxes to ensure the ballot boxes are properly kept and not tampered with. This monitoring system will immediately notify officials of any suspicious activities. By the end of today, all 33 polling stations will be monitored by CCTV and motion detectors which have been approved by the EC. This security system will undergo a test-run today at the BMA building.
According to the EC's requirements, there must be security personnel to guard the ballot storage room and the advance voting ballot boxes, and a CCTV system must be installed, both of which BMA has fulfilled.
For the upcoming election, the EC will take photographs of the vote0counting reports, which have already been posted at the polling station. BMA also has an AI image recognition system to provide real-time reporting of vote counts from polling stations. This AI technology can convert tally marks written by polling officials into numerical data to speed up accurate reporting of votes, and keep track of the number of people who have voted to prevent duplicate voting, issues about which the Election Commission is concerned. However, this AI system still needs to be approved by the EC.
According to Tosak Chotimongkol, chief advisor to the Bangkok governor, the EC has added two helpful processes. The first is that election officials will now take photographs of the vote counting reports to ensure accuracy and transparency before vote counting.
The second process is to place notices on the ballot boxes that clearly indicate which box is for individual candidate votes and which is for party list votes. This is to prevent confusion when casting ballots.
As for using AI to count the votes, it has been noted that because the counting takes place in the evening or at night, it will be affected by the lower light conditions which reduce the effectiveness of the AI system to 30% in terms of vote-counting and reading of handwriting on the vote counting reports.
