Bangkok Post Reports on DA Primary and Thailand Results

Unfortunately, the Bangkok Post sometimes doesn't fact check -- there was no DAT election center at any Starbucks in Bangkok -- rather, it was at a Starbucks in a Tesco Lotus mall up in Nongkhai, on the Thai-Lao border! But 15 years in Thailand have taught me to just confront these situations with a smile and a small shake of the head. This is a continuation of their incorrect story on Feb. 5 which resulted in me fielding calls from a handful of American voters in Bangkok who were evidently hunting for the right Starbucks in Bangkok to cast their vote. We got them sorted out and they came over to the FCCT in time to make their voice heard. All that said, we do appreciate the coverage the Bangkok Post has given us -- this story below was front and center in the headlines on their website all day yesterday (Feb. 22). And it is a catchy headline...

Barack takes Bangkok

(BangkokPost.com)

Barack Obama has easily won the primary election by Democrats Abroad, held at a Bangkok Starbucks and other unlikely venues worldwide early this month.

Obama trounced Hillary Clinton by about 2-to-1, the results showed. No one was in third place.

Polls in Thailand were set up in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Udorn Thani and Nong Khai, as well as Internet voting.

Of 598 votes cast by American Democrats in Thailand, Obama won 415 votes against Clinton's 169 - 69.4 per cent against just 28.3 per cent.

Edwards (5), Kucinich (4), Biden (2), Uncommitted (2) and Richardson (1) also won votes in Thailand, according to tallies by Democrats Abroad.

These are the official, worldwide results released by Democrats Abroad headquarters in Washington:

• Barack Obama 65.6%
• Hillary Clinton 32.7%
• John Edwards 0.7%
• Dennis Kucinich 0.6%
• Joe Biden 0.1%
• Bill Richardson 0.1%
• Uncommitted 0.2%

Overseas Americans who back the Democrat Party voted by Internet, mail and in person, according to results released by the Democrats Abroad group in Washington, an organisation sanctioned by the national party.

More than 20,000 U.S. citizens living abroad voted in the primary, which ran from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12. Obama won about 65 per cent of the vote, according to the results released on Thursday in Washington.

This gave Obama his 11th consecutive victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Most primary elections, conducted to choose a party's candidate for the November election against Republican John McCain, are at the state level.

Voters living in 164 countries cast votes online, the group said.

Expatriates voted in person in more than 30 countries. Apart from the Bangkok coffee-shop poll, they voted at hotels in Australia and Costa Rica, and at a pub in Ireland.

The results took about a week to tabulate as local committees around the globe gathered ballots.