Recount of poll votes starts today

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Recount of poll votes starts today

Udon Thani _ The recounting of votes from Sunday's House by-election in constituency 2 will start today following the losing candidate's complaint of possible vote rigging.

Unofficial results showed that Thirada Sanitwongchai of Thai Rak Thai won with 39,251 votes while her rival Ong-art Wiset from the Mahachon party, representing the opposition, received 28,760 votes.

The by-election was to fill the vacancy left by Thai Rak Thai MP Atthapol Sanitwongchai who died after plunging from his apartment block room in Bangkok last month.

The new count was ordered because 74,114 people turned up to vote, but only 74,109 ballots were counted and five were missing.

That sparked a complaint by the candidate who lost the race.

Therdpong Saritho, chairman of the election committee for constituency 2, said the the panel and 244 vote-counting officers, including 100 from Muang Udon Thani police station and border patrol police officers, and 100 other officers from the 24th Army Circle, were ready to do the job today.

All documents and equipment would be carefully checked and all votes would be written down on marker boards and cross-checked with the number of marked ballot papers in each bag.

Results would then be submitted to the provincial election panel.