The low voter turnout for the election of Provincial Administration Organisation (PAO) presidents and members last Saturday is an embarrassment for the Election Commission (EC).
The 58.45% turnout fell short of the agency's 65% target. The turnout also dropped from the last PAO poll in 2020, which was a little over 62%.
The EC chairman, Ittiporn Boonpracong, repeated the targeted turnout when he inspected a polling station in Chiang Mai on election day.
Academics and observers attribute choosing a Saturday as a poll date to the poor turnout. Previously, they warned the EC of prospective drawbacks if it went ahead with a Saturday, which is a working day for many people, but the poll agency shrugged off such concerns.
An appeal by the People's Party for the EC to switch back to a Sunday proved fruitless.
The EC's claims of legal limitations for the need to hold the poll on a Saturday have been challenged by law experts who say that Feb 2, a Sunday, was legitimate and gave enough time to provide staff to manage the vote count.
Holding an election on a Saturday, which is unprecedented, is not against the law. But it's known that a Sunday, a day off for most people, will ensure more people can make it to the polling stations.
Unlike the national election, the local poll has no advance and inter-constituency voting.
Olarn Thinbangtieo, a political science lecturer at Burapha University, noted that holding a poll on a Sunday has become a political norm in Thailand and most of the democratic world.
According to several law experts, the current constitution states that exercising voting rights is the citizens' duty, which comes with consequences.
Not voting will rescind citizens' political rights for two years. That means citizens cannot compete in the elections at all levels and cannot serve as political staff for elected lawmakers and local administrators in that time frame. They cannot even lodge a petition against the national election outcome.
The poll held on Saturday saw 11.6 million eligible voters miss out on voting. Needless to say, such a gap indicates that the EC is failing to do what it was designed to do.
At a press conference on Monday, the EC showed no remorse for the low turnout or the choice to have the poll on Saturday.
Because the penalties for not exercising voting rights are rather serious, the EC must do better to facilitate voters.
Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case. Instead of making elections convenient and popular, the EC rigidly sticks to its bureaucratic timelines and rules.
The agency has shown no interest in tackling blunders in election laws and the inconsistencies in poll processes that confuse voters. Moreover, it fails to respond positively to calls for poll law amendments that will put advance and inter-constituency voting into place.
The EC is an independent agency and is obligated to maintain accountability. The poll agency owes the public apologies for the Saturday blunder and promise that it will not repeat it.