New Voting Right for Young

House of Councillors passed a bill for vesting voting right on Japanese citizens in the age of eighteen or nineteen. Joining the people in twenty years old or older, they will be able to vote in the election of the House next year. It was the first time in these seventy years that the government of Japan expand people’s voting right. Nevertheless, some young people are reluctant to go voting, because they are not informed to the extent they can decide whom they should vote. Post-war Japanese society has not been flexible enough to expand democracy.

The motivation of legislators supporting the bill was not a pure demand of young voices in their politics. When they made a law for referendum on constitutional amendment, voting age was set as eighteen years old or more. Then, they found that voting age in election needed to be lowered to eighteen or more, because both referendum and election are the same in terms of participation to politics. In other words, lowering the age for election was for constitutional amendment.

Young agers do not understand such an adult business. While most high school students welcome new low for voting right, some are frustrated with it. “I don’t understand politics well,” “I’m not confident in my knowledge on candidates,” “I’m too young to take responsibility for my vote,” “I don’t want a vote at all,” were typical response from young people who were negative to go to vote.

This is a consequence of social education in Japan. In highly bureaucratic society like Japan, people have been left in a situation of informational hunger. “Let them not informed, but dependent” were a golden words for bureaucrats. As a result of such a top-down type governance, the people are not accustomed to think about politics by themselves. When they asked to discuss political issues, they sometimes appalled by responsibility as a democratic citizen.

Targeting the innocence among the civil society, political parties are active to scoop those new young voters. Liberal Democratic Party is planning to settle a sticker machine, Print Club, at the lobby of the party headquarters, which provides sticker with portrait of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. President of Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, has been visiting high schools to sell his policy. Japan Communist Party has been discussing the issues related to young agers, including new security legislature that would send young people to battlefield or problem of “black firm” that forced hard labor with low wage.

Education of eligible voters is becoming a key concept for the government to raise the turnout of each election. But, the education must not be planting specific ideology to innocent people. Firstly, political leaders need to demonstrate how democracy is precious and worth participate in.