Japanese voters living abroad face challenges when it comes to participating in national elections due to limited polling stations and high costs. While the government is making efforts to improve overseas voting, experts argue that more needs to be done to expand voting opportunities for Japanese expatriates.
There are two options for eligible Japanese voters living abroad: casting their votes at diplomatic missions or voting by mail. However, these options come with their own difficulties. For example, Hiroko Uchida, who has been living in the United States for 20 years, has to travel 200 kilometers from her home in San Diego to the Japanese consulate general in Los Angeles just to vote. This requires a significant time commitment. Alternatively, she can vote by mail, but there have been issues with timely delivery of the ballot papers.
The frustration with overseas voting is evident among many expatriates like Uchida. The turnout rate among Japanese expatriates is only about 2%, with approximately 20,000 voters casting their ballots in recent elections out of a total of 1.02 million eligible voters living abroad.
To make it easier for overseas voting, the government has introduced online registration procedures since July. This has significantly reduced the time required for registration. For example, Yasuaki Namba, a lawyer living in Manila, was able to complete his registration within eight days and cast his vote at the Japanese Embassy.
However, despite these improvements in registration procedures, there have been few changes in the actual methods of overseas voting since its introduction in 2000. Many expatriates have experienced delays receiving their ballots due to postal service issues and other factors.
Experts suggest that measures such as printing ballots at diplomatic missions and introducing online voting should be considered to ensure more opportunities for Japanese expatriates to vote.
It’s worth noting that overseas voting was initially limited only to proportional representation segments but was expanded later on allowing votes from constituencies as well.