No real-time vote count reporting of general election to avoid mistakes: EC
The Election Commission (EC) will not provide vote counting updates in real-time for the next general election to avoid possible inaccuracies, EC secretary-general Sawang Boonmee said on Friday.
He said that unofficial results of vote counting from polling stations across the country would be available for the media through the agency's ECT Report system. The information would be made available only after being verified, he added.
Sawang said the EC had learned a lesson from the previous general election of 2019 when its real-time reporting of the vote count through a mobile application was marred with mistakes.
He blamed it on human error, especially incorrect inputs by officials at voting stations. He explained that at least 70 entries of information needed to be keyed in manually from each of some 55,000 voting stations across the country.
The secretary-general said that through the ECT Report system, the agency would be able to provide quick but accurate vote count results. He said unofficial results of the election would be available on the night of voting day.
Media outlets can link with the ECT Report system for accurate updates of the vote counting before reporting to the public.
Meanwhile, the EC on Friday called a press conference on its cooperation with Tiktok Thailand to spread knowledge about the election to voters.
At the same venue, the EC organised a training session for media professionals about laws, rules and regulations regarding the election.
Sawang thanked the media for their “good cooperation” with the agency. He said the EC would heed criticism from the media although some columnists based their opinions on “inaccurate information”.
He maintained that his agency was following the law to ensure that “the elections belong to everyone”, adding that the EC was not serving or trying to please anyone in particular.
