Your newly acquired right to vote: Using the web to know your candidates


In addition to all the naturalization procedures being new and difficult, one challenge that newly minted Japanese have is getting to know Japanese politics: how to vote, how the system works (often the government and election systems can be quite different from that of one's home country), and how to get good information about the parties and candidates.

Japan has just started its 2010 参議院 {sangiin} (House of Councilors; upper house) election cycle. In addition to the usual media (television and outdoor billboards), many Japanese politicians use digital media to get their message out. Councilors have a six year term, they can't be dissolved like the 衆議院 {shūgiin} (House of Representatives; lower house), and the elections are split so that exactly half of the house (121 politicians) is up for election every three years.

There are two naturalized Japanese in the House of Councilors: 弦念丸呈 {TSURUNEN Marutei}, who is not up for reelection this round (he will be in 2013). You will probably see his name rendered as ツルネンマルテイ ｛TSURUNEN Marutei} in campaign literature. Unlike almost anywhere else in Japanese culture, it's not uncommon for politicians to write their 漢字 {kanji} family and/or given names in 仮名 {kana} (Japanese syllabet) or use nicknames or pseudonyms in order to make their names more accessible and unique. The last thing you want is to lose a vote because a voter can't remember how to write or pronounce your name!

Very few Japanese politicians put their message out in languages other than Japanese, but there are at least two consolidated sources for getting Japanese information from digital sources:
  1. politter is a twitter aggregation site that collects the tweets from Japanese politicians. While it has a English interface <http://politter.com/en/>, all the tweets are in Japanese.
  2. Google Japan has a site dedicated to the 2010 Japan elections: <http://www.google.com/appserve/senkyo2010>. This makes it rather easy to find all the information related to Japanese politics in one central spot.
As with everything on the internet, some information is (intentionally or unintentionally) incorrect, so be sure to make properly informed choices. Right or wrong, the activities that Japanese politician can do while campaigning may be more restrictive or looser than other countries. In particular, their is considerable debate as to whether Japanese politicians should use twitter and/or other social networking technology to reach out to voters.

In addition to providing information about obtaining citizenship in Japan in English, we hope this blog will also provide information about how to exercise one's rights as a Japanese national in English.

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