Bangkok: The Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) has outlined the comprehensive procedures to be followed after the polls close for the upcoming general elections and referendum.
According to Thai News Agency, the ECT detailed that votes will be counted live at the polling stations and subsequently sent for final verification, followed by real-time reporting via a dashboard. The certification of Members of Parliament (MPs) is expected to be announced within 60 days, while the results of the referendum will be revealed within 30 days after the election date.
The ECT has further clarified the entire process for submitting votes from polling stations to the public through the "ECT Report 69" system. This process involves several key steps, beginning with the vote counting at polling stations. After voting concludes at 5:00 PM, polling station officials will secure the ballot slots for both parliamentary and referendum votes, verify voter numbers, check remaining ballots, and ensure all required documents are complete. The counting of votes will then commence for constituency-based MPs, party-list MPs, and referendum votes, conducted openly in front of the public until finished.
Once the vote counting is complete, the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority (MWA) will record the results through the ECT Report 69 system. This process, developed in partnership with the Big Data Institute (BDI), involves uploading documents, entering numerical data, and confirming its accuracy. The data will then be sent to the District Vote Counting Center for verification, where officials will compare the entered data with photographs of the vote count report to ensure accuracy before confirming and entering the information into the system.
The system will process and display results on a public dashboard, with reporting beginning at approximately 6:30 PM. The system will provide unofficial results for up to 95% of polling stations in each constituency. The public can access real-time scores on the dedicated website, which presents the results in an easily understandable format, while media outlets can link to the CSV file for further dissemination.
Post-election, the results will undergo legal verification prior to the official announcement. The announcement of results for constituency and party-list MPs will be completed as soon as possible, within a 60-day timeframe. Objections to the election results can be filed within 30 days after the announcement. For the referendum, results will be announced within 30 days if the voting was conducted fairly, with objections allowed within 48 hours after voting concludes.