A set of overseas ballots received by a Japanese woman living in Finland on Nov. 1, after the Oct. 31 House of Representatives election, is seen in this image provided by the Finland resident.

       OSAKA -- Thirty-seven percent of Japanese overseas voters registered in Tokyo's 23 wards who wanted to cast mail ballots for the House of Representatives election on Oct. 31 appear to have abandoned voting for a number of reasons, a Mainichi Shimbun inquiry with each of the 23 wards' election councils has found.

       Furthermore, nearly 10% of these overseas voters were sent out ballots that didn't arrive in time for the voting deadline. The recent lower election's polling day came after its dissolution following the shortest intervening period recorded in the postwar period. There were also numerous international postal service delays due to the coronavirus pandemic. Complaints that ballots wouldn't make it in time erupted among voters, and it seems stronger moves demanding the system's improvement are coming.

       Japanese nationals living abroad can vote by mail or at diplomatic missions abroad such as embassies. But mail voting requires a laborious back-and-forth exchange in which an individual sends a form requesting a set of ballots from the local election board in Japan where they are registered as an overseas voter. Once the ballots have arrived in their country of residence, individuals then mail them back filled in. Rules state that voters can return their ballots from the day after an election's official announcement, and that they must reach election boards before polling stations close -- generally 8 p.m. on polling day in Japan.

       After the House of Representatives election, the Mainichi Shimbun asked the election councils of Tokyo's 23 wards, which have many registered overseas voters, how many applications they received from individuals seeking postal voting, the number of mail votes received, and how many ballots arrived after the deadline. The numbers are for ballot totals for single-seat constituencies, and tallies recorded by election councils that did not aggregate data that distinguishes between single-seat constituencies and proportional representation votes were treated as single-seat constituency figures.

       As a result, in the capital's 23 wards, of 445 people overseas seeking to vote by post, mail ballots were cast successfully in only 211 cases -- under half of applications. Though there were 33 cases where individuals cast their ballots by switching to voting at diplomatic missions after applying for postal voting, as of Nov. 11 at least 37 cases have been classed "no votes" for reaching election boards after the deadline. Details on voting activities in the other 164 cases, or 37%, is unknown. It is possible however that people living abroad abandoned voting for reasons including their ballots not being mailed in time. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Election Administration Commission, 18,635 voters living abroad were registered as voters of the capital's 23 wards on polling day. Turnout was 27.9%, with 5,200 people casting votes.

       Tokyo's Minato Ward has about 1,200 registered overseas voters. It saw 31 cases where individuals requested ballots be sent to them, but just 12 postal votes were successful postal votes. In just two cases, individuals switched to voting at diplomatic missions. Ballots arrived after the deadline in five cases, while the other 12 cases had yet to reach the election council as of Nov. 8.

       Kita Ward, where all applicants for mail ballots successfully voted in the 2017 general election, faced similar issues. Although 11 overseas voters applied for mail voting, ballots from only five came back in time for the election. Two arrived after the deadline, and the remaining four's whereabouts were unknown as of Nov. 9. A ward representative offered their analysis, saying, "Requests for postal ballots were nearly triple last time, and the fact that it took longer for the mail to arrive due to the coronavirus pandemic may have been a factor." Embassies and other institutions have been recommending postal voting as a way to prevent infections, and requests for mail ballots were up significantly in most wards.

       Some ballot forms were also not delivered in time for polling day in multiple wards in the city of Osaka in western Japan. Among them, Miyakojima Ward's election council received postal ballot request applications from a voter on Oct. 4. But despite the forms being sent two days later, the filled-in ballots apparently arrived back on Nov. 8, over a week after election day and vote counting.

       The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications says some 100,000 Japanese nationals living abroad are registered voters. Their turnout for the single-seat constituency bloc of the October lower house election was 20.05%, 19,383 voters in all. However, it is estimated that over 1 million people aged 18 or older live overseas, which would mean turnout is effectively below 2%.

       To process to register as an overseas voter requires going to embassies and other diplomatic missions, and takes about two to three months -- all factors said to be among the reasons behind their low turnout.

       Hiroyuki Takenaga, 55, the co-head representative of Japanese Overseas Voters Network New York, engages in supporting overseas voting. He told the Mainichi Shimbun: "More and more people are saying that voting for those living overseas is very demanding. To solve this systematic issue, there must be progress on digitization of registration procedures, as well as an online voting system."

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

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