Thailand election monitor dismisses baseless warning of 'invisible ink' pens at polling stations

"If you're going to vote, do bring your own pen. There are rumours that officials will prepare a pen in which the ink will fade later," reads a Thai-language graphic shared on Twitter on May 9.

"Then the ballots will be crossed out by somebody else as they like. Please share."

Thailand goes to the polls on May 14 in a clash pitching military generals clinging to power against a younger resurgent opposition movement calling for change.

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Screenshot of a tweet sharing the misleading claim, taken on May 9, 2023

Facebook groups in Thailand also shared the graphic, including a group with more than 275,000 members supporting the opposition Pheu Thai Party, which is led by Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of exiled former leader and billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra.

A similar post emerged in another Facebook group with more than 260,000 members.

The posts were published after Thailand's election commission came under fire for its handling of early voting on May 7, when election officials put the wrong constituency code numbers on about 100 envelopes containing ballot sheets, Thai PBS reported (archived link).

The election commission said it was investigating the incident.

An election commission spokesman said separately that rumours of "invisible ink" pens at the polls were baseless.

"We'd like to clarify that all the pens used in all polling stations in Thailand are only ballpoint pens which cannot be erased or faded by themselves," Maj. Natthawat Sa-ngiamsak, deputy secretary of the election commission told AFP on May 9.

The commission published a Facebook post which also said voters would be given ballpoint pens (archived link).

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Screenshot of a Facebook post by the Thai election commssion debunking the claim, taken on May 10, 2023

An independent election monitoring group in Thailand dismissed the rumour as "disinformation".

"We've seen this claim before in 2019 and used our verification process to see if it has any facts on the ground. It's only disinformation," Pongsak Chan-on, director of We Watch Thailand told AFP.

He said the claim was "baseless and lacks evidence".

In the 2019 general election, the election commission denied a similar rumour that officials had prepared invisible ink pens for voters to mark their ballots with (archived link).

Misinformation has previously surfaced around using pens to vote in elections around the world, including in Australia, Canada and the United States.

Thai voters will be allowed to use their own pens to cast their ballots, according to Natthawat and a representative for a Bangkok-based legal watchdog that is monitoring the election.

Natthawat said voters would be allowed to bring a pen of their preferred colour to vote.

"Blue, black, green, red -- we have no problem with it," he told AFP.

"If you don't want to use the pens prepared by authorities, you can definitely use your own pens," said Anon Chawalawan, a senior officer at the non-profit Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw).