Thailand’s website for early-voting registration crashed on Monday (Jan 28) morning after a huge number of voters rushed to secure their balloting rights, leading to speculation that the upcoming election could see a high turnout. The March 24 poll will be the country’s first general election in seven years. Early voting this year will take place from March 4 to 17. The online registration opened after midnight on the website of the Department of Public Administration. But the website went down in the morning after too many voters tried to access the site at the same time. The Election Commission’s (EC) deputy secretary-general Nat Laosisavakul said the crash was due to a large number of people entering the website. The failure, in particular, affected those registering for overseas voting, he said.
But the issue was resolved soon after and from 8.30am to 9am on Monday, at least 1,000 voters had successfully registered to vote early outside their home constituencies, he added. The registration is also available offline via the department’s offices or Thai embassies until Feb 19, he said.
Despite the incident, the EC said online registration remains the most convenient channel for voters, adding that it expects the total number of those registering to exceed 2 million.
Full Article: Enthusiasm crashes Thailand election website on first day of early-voting registration, SE Asia News & Top Stories – The Straits Times.