Bangkok voter turnout will exceed last election's 72%, according to city clerk
More Bangkok voters turned out to cast their ballots on Sunday than in the previous general election four years ago, when the voter turnout was over 72%.
“The voter turnout this year is expected to exceed that of the 2019 election when more than 72% of Bangkok’s eligible voters cast their ballots,” said Khachit Chatchawanit, the permanent secretary of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA).
He said he expected unofficial vote results for Bangkok’s 33 constituencies to be available by 10pm on Sunday.
The city clerk also thanked the over 100,000 BMA officials who started working at 4am on election day, as well as the police officers who were dispatched to polling stations.
He said the voting in Bangkok was held mostly without any incident. Among the city’s 6,327 polling stations, only two of them saw some issues – one in Huai Kwang district and the other one in Min Buri district.
At a voting station in Huai Kwang, an election official reportedly tore a ballot paper accidentally.
At a Min Buri polling station, ballots cast from both the constituency MP and the party-list systems were initially put in the same box. But the ballot papers were later separated by their colour – green for the party-list system and purple for the constituency MP.
The city clerk also urged eligible voters who failed to exercise their right on Sunday to report and explain to election officials by May 21 in order to avoid losing their electoral rights for two years, as specified by the electoral law.
They can do so through multiple channels – in person, by mail, via the Election Commission website, or through the EC’s official mobile application Smart Vote.
Failure to file their report and explanation in time will result in losing the right to protest an election result, contest an election, serve as a political appointee, and assume a local administrative post.
