Dr. Vayo reveals the intent of the 2017 Constitution concerning secrecy issues around barcodes on election ballots, pointing out that secret ballots must not allow any retrospective verification of voter choices. He sarcastically said, “It's over now, Election Commission.”
At 14:00 on 28 Feb 2026 GMT+7, Dr. Vayo Aswarungroeng, prospective party-list MP from the Prachachon Party, posted an image of the explanatory notes and intent of each article of the 2017 Constitution from the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, along with the message, “It's over now, Election Commission.”
Dr. Vayo said that many people have previously tried to interpret the meaning of “secret” as stated in the Constitution in various ways. However, this current Constitution was only drafted and enacted in 2017. Therefore, the evidence recording the drafters' intent remains solid. The “Intent and Explanatory Notes on Each Article of the 2017 Constitution” by the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, pages 140 to 141, explains that “secret voting” means voters must cast their ballots in a way that “no other person can know or verify” how they voted or which candidate they chose. Thus, “other person” means anyone who is not the voter themselves, and consequently, the Election Commission is also considered an “other person” under this constitutional intent.
Dr. Vayo posted that the phrase “cannot be known or verified” means the secrecy of the vote must be maintained both during and indefinitely after voting—“forever”—with no method available to “verify” votes. The presence of barcodes on party-list election ballots (pink ballots), which in fact allow verification of how an individual voted, does not comply with the secret voting principle and intent of the 2017 Constitution of Thailand.