Election officials count ballots at the polling station at Bang Muang School in Samut Prakan province yesterday.

At least 523 complaints of irregularities in yesterday's election have been filed with the Democrat Party, most of which question whether the Election Commission had organised a free and fair election, the party spokesman said yesterday.

The Democrat headquarters was quiet yesterday as party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, executive members and former MPs visited polling stations to monitor the election after casting their own votes.

Spokesman Ong-art Klampaiboon said citizens had filed complaints with the party in addition to observations of electoral violations made by party personnel.

The Democrats plan to take action as soon as possible after the election results are available, he said.

The irregularity that caused the most concern was that voting booths were positioned facing the wall or in such a way that other people could see how voters cast their ballots.

"If somebody stood 10 metres away from the ballot booth, he could still see how the voters made their marks, as people tended to move the ballot cards up to make a mark for 'no vote' and move it down to vote for a candidate or a party," he said.

The lack of privacy in the booths may violate Section 104 of the Constitution, which mandates secret ballots, Ong-art said.

The Election Commission's explanation that the booths were positioned in order to make it easier for voters to enter and exit was unconvincing, he said.

Also, some voting stations did not provide pens for voters to mark their ballots, although some people might not have wanted to use rubber stamps on the grounds that it would be easier to alter the ballots and distort the election results, he said.

The failure to provide pens at some election stations violated a recent ruling by the Administrative Court.

In some provinces, especially in the Northeast, there were reports of vote-buying and staff at balloting stations trying to dissuade voters from choosing the "no vote" option, Ong-art said.

There were also complaints about people using others' names to vote, missing names on eligible voter lists and ballot papers of similar colour, he said. In many voting stations of the Central region, voters were given ballot papers for constituency and party-list candidates that were almost identical in colour.

The Democrats took the position that the election would not solve people's persistent distrust of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and that it would actually increase the general lack of confidence in elected politicians and political parties.

The government that will be formed on the basis of the elec-tion will not be able to compet-ently govern the country, Ong-art said.

Kornchanok Raksaseri

The Nation