When you think of ballots for elections, you probably think of one with a blank space for the names of candidates and political parties.
Twitter posts that overturn this image are receiving a lot of feedback.
“Mayor election, voting on the day is stamp type. This is very good!”
Before the polling day of the Mayor of Matsudo election in Chiba prefecture on June 5, we announced the voting method.City public relations magazineA photo of the city was posted by a resident of the city. Then, comments were received one after another asking “I want you to shift to this voting method even in the national elections” and “more popularize”.
From “Public Relations Matsudo” (published by Matsudo City)
According to the City Election Commission, ballots with a list of candidate names will be distributed on the polling day of the mayoral election. The table is equipped with a stamp that can be marked with a “◯”, and voters can put a stamp on the name of the candidate they want to vote on in the list and vote.
This method applies only on the day of voting, and voters themselves write the names of candidates in early voting.
The contributor said in an interview with the HuffPost Japan version, “Using stamps not only makes voting easier, but also seems to prevent mistakes when candidate names and political party abbreviations are duplicated, so I think it is a very good response. “.
The first introduction was long ago
Matsudo City has adopted a voting method called “symbolic voting,” which is permitted by the Public Offices Election Act.
According to the city election commission, this is not the first time the city has started a symbolic ceremony. The first to be introduced was the 1973 mayoral election. It was introduced for the purpose of simplifying the voting method and preventing invalid votes when the characters are unreadable or the name is entered incorrectly.
The 50-year-old voting method has now attracted attention because of the turmoil in national elections. In the proportional representation of the House of Representatives election in the fall of 2021, where both the Constitutional Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for the People used the abbreviation “Democratic Party,” there were a large number of “proportions” in which votes were allocated according to the percentage of votes obtained.
Even in the proportional representation of the upper house election in the summer of 2022, both parties have decided to abbreviate as “Democratic Party”, and there are concerns about the same situation as in 2021.
In the House of Representatives election in the fall of 2021, there was a constituency in which two people with the same surname and the same name ran for the election, and it was talked about that “the votes may be divided.”
A person in charge of the city election said, “With the symbolic formula, even if there are candidates with the same surname and the same name or parties with similar names, we can expect to reduce mistakes in entry.”
Municipal level, not penetrated
Matsudo City has a long history of symbolic voting, but there are some cases that have begun in recent years.Kobe City will have a similar mechanism in the Mayor’s election in the fall of 2021Introduced.
However, it is rare for local governments to adopt symbolic expressions in local elections nationwide. According to the monthly election magazine “Election Time Signal”, as of the end of 2020, about 10% of all local governments (225 local governments) have adopted the symbolic formula, and the number is decreasing year by year.
The person in charge of the Matsudo City election speculates that the reason is the administrative burden. The Public Offices Election Law stipulates that voting can only be done on the day of the poll, and in early voting and absentee voting, only the “self-form” in which the voter’s name is entered can be adopted. It is said that the clerical work is complicated because it is necessary to prepare two types of ballots, a symbolic type and a self-form, and to process the ballot counting.
Furthermore, in the case of a symbolic expression in which all candidate names must be printed, it may not be possible to write on the paper unless the characters are made smaller as the number of candidates increases. Due to these physical restrictions, local governments with many candidates can easily choose their own format as long as there is a space for entering the name of one candidate.
Far from not penetrating, a series of symbolic expressions of withdrawal. Why does Matsudo City continue?
The person in charge explained, “It is true that the administrative burden is heavy, but as long as there is a benefit to voters such as’easy to vote’, there is no option to abolish the symbolic expression.”
How about the introduction in the national election?
Then, is it possible to introduce a symbolic expression in the national elections, where there are a series of requests on the Internet?
According to the Public Offices Election Act, symbolic expressions are only allowed in local elections. Under the current law, only self-form is allowed in national elections.
The possibility that the symbolic formula will be introduced in the upper house election in the summer of 2022 is “zero%”. The only way to reduce the number of votes is for voters to write down the party names and candidate names accurately and in an easy-to-read manner.
<Interview / text = Kinharuki @chu_ni_kim / HuffPost Japan Version>