Overseas voter ballot delays also found in Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward, neighboring city

OSAKA — Following revelations that Tokyo’s Minato Ward had sent House of Representatives election ballots to residents overseas late, the Mainichi Shimbun has found similar problems in the capital’s Katsushika Ward and in the neighboring city of Saitama, raising concerns that some citizens living abroad will be unable to get their votes back to Japan in time for the Oct. 31 poll.

Mainichi inquiries found that Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward’s election council began sending the ballots as late as Oct. 18, a day before the official declaration of the lower house election campaign, while the election council of Saitama’s Kita Ward sent them on Oct. 15, the day after the lower house was dissolved. The delay will make it extremely difficult for citizens residing in countries where it takes over two weeks to have the ballots delivered and mailed back to election boards to vote in time.

According to the Katsushika Ward election council, seven ward residents registered as overseas voters had requested ballots starting in mid-September, but the election council was considering posting them when the lower house was dissolved — the customary practice.

“We figured that there was still time before the lower house’s dissolution, and thought that we didn’t have to send them out yet,” a ward representative commented. “But the dissolution came earlier than we expected, so we were swamped with administrative work for the election as a whole, and mailing was delayed.”

The city of Saitama’s Kita Ward election council received ballot request forms from two overseas voters in autumn 2019, and had filed them at the ward office. A Kita Ward election council representative explained that it had “waited for the election date to be confirmed.”

They said that the council was aware it was legally required to send overseas ballots to those who request them 60 days before the lower house’s term ends, and other rules. However, it delayed posting the ballots to prevent them from being invalidated by writing candidate names on them before a day had passed after the official announcement of the election.

Saitama’s Kita Ward election council also sought advice from the Saitama election council, which told the Mainichi, “As there are concerns that ballots will be lost if sent too soon, we told the ward council it should mail the ballots so that they would arrive around the time of the election’s official announcement. Legally speaking, they should have been sent out immediately on Aug. 22 or later. We’d like to provide guidance to our staff and strive for improvement.”

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