DeGregorio, whose three-year term ended earlier this month, met on Monday with senior officials of the Thai Election Commission, which is interested in introducing e-voting here.

In the last 2004 US presidential election, e-voting, an electronic means of casting votes via computer terminals and electronic counting of those votes, accounted for about 40 per cent of all votes, DeGregorio said.

Several countries have already introduced e-voting, such as India and Brazil, while others have also started Internet-based voting, such as the Netherlands and Estonia.

DeGregorio said the US would launch a pilot project on Internet-based voting next year for about four million Americans abroad. Currently, overseas Americans vote early by mail.

In Thailand, e-voting - which could help prevent election fraud due to increased security - is not currently possible, as the Election Commission has yet to amend the law to permit electronic means of casting ballots.

Later this year, Thai voters are scheduled to cast two important ballots. The Council for National Security has said the new constitution would be ready for a referendum around August or September, and the next general election would be held by the end of the year.

DeGregorio, who is an international election expert, said the mass media always played a key role in elections as it needed to inform and educate the general public on important issues and basic voting rules.