Japan Eyes Online Voting for Expatriates

August 10, 2018

Tokyo- A government panel said Friday that it is feasible to introduce an online voting system for Japanese expatriates in national elections.

Technical hurdles concerning voter identification can be overcome with the use of the My Number ID cards, according to a report compiled by the internal affairs ministry panel.

The ministry plans to conduct an online voting test in fiscal 2019 and request funds for the trial under the government's budget for year from April next year, ministry officials said.

It hopes to revise the public offices election law in fiscal 2020 at the earliest so that the Internet voting system will be introduced for Japanese people living abroad, they said.

"I think it's desirable to introduce the online voting system at an early time," internal affairs minister Seiko Noda told a press conference on Friday.

Japanese expatriates currently can vote at Japanese diplomatic offices abroad or by mail. One problem with the current system is that the voting periods for them are shorter than for those for voters at home, because it takes time to transport the voting slips back to Japan.

Of some 100,000 Japanese registered voters abroad, the proportion of those who actually vote is low, around 20 pct.

In the upcoming test, the ministry will examine security-related issues, such as whether ballot secrecy will be protected, the officials said.

Since the My Number cards lose effect when holders move out of Japan, a relevant law needs to be revised to make them valid overseas.

Elsewhere in the report, the ministry panel proposed easing the requirements to set up ballot counting stations on remote islands, after a typhoon prevented ballot boxes from being transported from some islands to mainland counting stations in last year's House of Representatives election, leading to delays in vote counting.

The panel specifically sought a cut in the minimum required number of witnesses for ballot counting per station to two from the current three in times of disasters and other emergencies. Jiji Press