BANGKOK, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled on Monday that barcodes and QR codes printed on ballots in the February general election did not violate the charter's guarantee of voting secrecy, letting the election result stand.
According to a court statement, the nine-judge panel voted unanimously that the use of QR codes on ballots was constitutional and voted 8-1 that the barcodes on party-list ballots were also constitutional.
The court said the codes were used to control and verify ballots and did not directly reveal how anyone voted, as tracing a vote would require linking the ballot, its counterfoil, and the voter list.
After inspecting ballot storage sites, the court found that the Election Commission held these documents under sufficiently strict security.
The court also found no evidence that any person or agency had linked the documents to discover how a voter had cast a ballot.
It said the barcodes served legitimate purposes, including preventing counterfeit ballots, controlling ballot numbers, stopping ballots from being used in the wrong constituency, and managing printing within the time frame the constitution sets for holding elections.
However, the court said the matter had affected public trust in the Election Commission's handling of the election. It recommended the commission design future ballots without markings that could link voters to their votes and apply especially strict security to the ballots at issue in the case.
The country's Ombudsman petitioned the court after receiving 22 complaints over the Election Commission's ballot design in the Feb. 8 general election.
The complainants argued that the codes printed on ballot papers made it possible to trace voters and their choices, breaching several constitutional provisions.
About 37.8 million Thais voted in the election, which incumbent Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's Bhumjaithai Party won decisively before leading the formation of a coalition government. ■
