Thai Court Upholds 2026 Election Despite Barcode Voting Concerns

BANGKOK — On 28 September 2026, Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled that the use of barcodes and QR codes on ballot papers in the 8 February general election did not violate the Constitution, rejecting claims that the codes compromised the secrecy of voting. The ruling means the election remains valid.

The court began oral deliberations at 09:30 on 28 September in a case referred by the Ombudsman following 22 complaints concerning the Election Commission's organisation of the 8 February 2026 general election.

The complaints argued that barcodes and QR codes printed on ballot papers could potentially allow individual ballots to be traced back to voters, raising questions over whether voting had remained secret as required by the Constitution.

The court delivered its ruling at 14:00, with Election Commission chairman Narong Klanwarin among those attending to hear the decision.

The court said the central question was whether the use of QR codes and barcodes was compatible with the constitutional requirement that elections be conducted through direct and secret voting.

During the election, polling-station officials checked voters' names, house-registration numbers, names, surnames and sex before voters signed the ballot stubs. Officials then detached the two ballot papers — one for constituency MPs and another for the party-list vote — and handed them to voters.

After marking their choices, voters folded the ballots and placed them in ballot boxes.

The petitioners argued that barcodes on party-list ballots and QR codes on constituency ballots could indirectly be used to trace a ballot back to an individual voter, particularly because the codes could be photographed or scanned during vote counting.

The Election Commission argued that this was not possible because voters' names were not printed on ballots and ballot stubs were securely stored.

Evidence presented to the court showed that both barcodes and QR codes could be scanned using smartphones, but the resulting information consisted only of numbers or codes that would have to be combined with other documents before an individual voter could be identified.

Identifying a voter would require access to three separate sets of information: the ballot paper, its corresponding ballot stub and the voter register. Access to all three would generally not be possible without a court order.

For constituency ballots, scanning the QR code produces letters and numbers corresponding to the ballot booklet number. Each booklet covers 20 ballots.

The court found that this information alone could not be linked to a particular voter.

Party-list ballots, however, contained both QR codes and barcodes. The barcode at the bottom of the ballot contained information identifying the corresponding ballot booklet and could therefore potentially be matched with a ballot stub.

The court found that, if the ballot, stub and voter register were all combined, it could theoretically be possible to identify an individual voter.