Former Election Commission Member Highlights Potential Election Ballot Barcode Concerns

Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, a former Election Commission member, posted observations about barcodes on election ballots. He noted that the ballots are expensive to produce, with pink ballots costing 1.40 baht, green ballots 1.20 baht, and yellow ballots 1.00 baht. The ballots have sophisticated security features like special watermarks visible only under ultraviolet light and micro-text that requires a magnifying glass to read. Somchai emphasized that these features are designed to prevent ballot forgery, not to track individual voters. He stressed that Article 85 of the Constitution requires parliamentary elections to be direct and 'secret', raising concerns about potential tracking capabilities of the ballot barcodes.