A set of overseas ballots that arrived Oct. 17 from Tokyo's Minato Ward election council. (Photo courtesy of Haruka Iwao)

       OSAKA -- Some Japanese voters overseas are concerned that they will not have enough time to receive and cast their ballots in time for the House of Representatives election due to a possible legal violation by Tokyo's Minato Ward election council.

       According to the Enforcement Order of the Public Offices Elections Act and other rules, overseas ballots must be sent to those who request them immediately after Aug. 22, 60 days before the term of the incumbent lower house members ends. But the Minato Ward Office only began sending them out on Oct. 11, which may be in violation of the law. Some overseas Japanese residents are worried that their votes will not make it in time to be counted.

       Japanese nationals living abroad can vote through the mail or at diplomatic missions abroad such as embassies. In the case of mail, one sends a form seeking a set of ballots and an overseas voter certificate to the election board where they are registered as an overseas voter. When the ballots arrive, the voter writes in the name of the candidate of their choice the day after the official announcement of the election at the earliest, and mails the ballots back to the election board by 8 p.m. on the day of voting and vote counting in Japan. As of Sept. 1, the number of Japanese nationals registered as overseas voters stood at approximately 97,000.

       The Public Offices Elections Act's Enforcement Order and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' enforcement rules for overseas voting designate the start date of sending out overseas ballots as "60 days before the end of a House of Representatives term, or the day that the House of Representatives is dissolved, whichever comes first," and demands that overseas ballots be sent out from that day onward, as soon as possible.

       Since the end of the House of Representatives term this time around would have been Oct. 21, the internal affairs ministry sent out a notice dated Aug. 20 to election councils nationwide explicitly stating that the start date for sending out overseas ballots would be Aug. 22.

       The ministry had urged election councils to practice caution, and to make thorough preparations to swiftly send out overseas ballots, since postal services may be off schedule in various countries due to the spread of the coronavirus, and therefore the ballots and other paperwork may take longer than usual to reach their destination.

       An official with the Minato Ward election council explained to the Mainichi Shimbun, "We understand that we can send out ballots starting 60 days before the end of the House of Representatives term. We had received requests for overseas ballots from Japanese nationals living abroad in September, but we were not planning to start sending them out until we knew exactly when the election period was going to be, and ship them out immediately after the lower house was dissolved. But because we had multiple people telling us, 'our ballots won't make it in time,' we immediately started sending out the ballots."

       Meanwhile, an official with the Osaka prefectural election board, which had been preparing to allow municipal election boards under its jurisdiction to start sending out overseas ballots on Aug. 22 in adherence to rules and the internal ministry's notice, said, "This is the first post-World War II House of Representatives election taking place past the lower house members' terms. Since it had been standard, until now, to send out ballots after the dissolution of the lower chamber, some election boards might struggle with the current situation."

       Tomoaki Ikeya, a professor of comparative politics at Waseda University, said, "Minato Ward should have followed the law, and started sending out the ballots on Aug. 22. This is true especially because this time, the period between the dissolution and voting is short, at just 17 days, and there's a danger people won't be able to exercise their right to vote, which is a big problem."

       (Japanese original by Yukina Furukawa, Osaka City News Department)

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