By Mayuko Maeda
In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which is a human rights treaty that specifically promotes the rights of people with disabilities. One important human right that is promoted within this treaty is the right to participate in political and public life. In particular, Article 29 of the CRPD obligates state parties to guarantee that people with disabilities can exercise their political rights on an equal basis with others. This involves eliminating any disability-based restrictions on the right to vote and be elected, and ensuring that election procedures and facilities are accessible to people with all types of impairments and conditions, including those that affect people’s physical, mental, cognitive, and sensory functions.
Japan signed and ratified the CRPD in 2008 and 2014, respectively. This means that Japan is legally obligated to implement all the convention’s principles, including those related to political rights. Over the years, Japan has indeed made some progress in making its elections more accessible for its citizens with disabilities, in large part due to the efforts of domestic activists. However, there is still a long way to go—particularly concerning the procedural accessibility of its elections—before Japan can claim to be truly compliant with Article 29 of the CRPD.
Voting Rights
Until 2013, Japanese citizens under guardianship, or “adult wards,” were not allowed to vote or run for office under the Public Offices Election Act. (For reference, in Japan, people become adult wards when they have been judged by a court to lack certain decision-making capacities—generally those related to managing one’s property and finances—because of a mental or cognitive condition.)
In 2011, however, a woman with Down syndrome sued the national government at the Tokyo District Court after losing her right to vote as a result of becoming a ward, and similar lawsuits against the government soon followed in three other locations in Japan. In March 2013, the court in Tokyo ultimately ruled in favor of the plaintiff, stating that the Election Act violated the principle of universal adult suffrage as established in the Japanese constitution. Two months after this ruling, the parliament—or “National Diet”—revised the election law to enfranchise all adult wards (estimated to be around 136,000 people in total at the time). Thus, thanks to this law revision, there are now no longer any legal provisions that disenfranchise adult citizens based on their (perceived) decisional capacities.
Voting Procedures
On the other hand, while there are no longer any laws that explicitly disenfranchise people with mental or cognitive disabilities, in practice, there are still many aspects of Japan’s election procedures that prevent citizens with various disabilities from exercising their right to vote.
For example, in Japan, as a rule, voters are expected to vote in person and manually write the names of their preferred candidates or parties on their ballot sheets (Public Offices Election Act Article 44(1), Article 46). Such voting procedures, however, pose practical hurdles to people who are unable to physically access the voting stations (e.g., due to mobility issues or illnesses that keep them bedridden), or those who have trouble writing (e.g., due to mobility issues or intellectual/developmental disabilities).
To address such hurdles, there are some special measures in place to make voting more accessible. For example, voters with visual impairments are allowed to vote with braille ballots (first introduced in 1925). Additionally, for people who have writing difficulties, there is the option of proxy voting (introduced in 1889, repealed the following year, and later reintroduced in 1950). Another special measure is absentee voting in designated institutions (e.g., hospitals) and via mail. Absentee voting for people with physical disabilities and certain health conditions was first introduced in 1947. It was subsequently repealed in 1952 after some cases of fraud occurred, but was again reintroduced in 1974 after a lawsuit by a person with a physical disability in Otaru City (Okura 2019). At the time of the reintroduction, the eligibility criteria for absentee voting was limited to those with severe physical disabilities or war injuries. However, the eligibility criteria broadened in 2003 to include voters with the highest level of need for care (“level 5”) under the Japanese care insurance program. Moreover, the 2003 reform also newly allowed voters with over a certain degree of impairment in their upper limbs or vision to vote by proxy when mailing their ballots (which, in turn, had also been prompted by a lawsuit filed by three ALS patients in 2000). In short, over the years, Japan has made some progress in making its election procedures more accessible for many groups.
On the other hand, not all barriers have been eliminated from Japanese election procedures. For example, as mentioned before, eligibility for absentee voting is limited to people with severe physical disabilities, war injuries, and people with level 5 need for care under the care insurance program. This excludes many people with less severe disabilities (e.g., people with temporary mobility issues and certain bedridden individuals) who are nevertheless unable to physically access the voting stations. Moreover, since the Japanese care insurance program only accepts enrollees who are at least 40 years old, younger adults are ineligible for absentee voting even if they have the same health conditions as level 5 care insurance enrollees. And since there are no braille ballots available for absentee voting via mail, people with visual impairments are also excluded from absentee voting procedures.
In addition, there are also issues with the proxy voting procedures. Under the current system, only polling station staff are allowed to serve as proxy voters. However, many people who rely on proxy voting (e.g., people with intellectual or cognitive disabilities) often find it difficult to communicate their preferences to strangers—especially strangers who have had no training in interacting with people with intellectual/cognitive disabilities (as is the case with many poll workers). In addition, some have argued that restricting proxy voters to polling station staff violates people’s right to a secret ballot—in fact, there was even a lawsuit regarding this very issue filed by a person with cerebral palsy in 2017 (although the plaintiff ultimately lost the case).
The Growing Importance of Election Accessibility
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the barriers that still exist in Japanese elections. Many other issues need to be addressed—such as the lack of informational accessibility and physical barriers within/surrounding the voting stations—but describing them all would require several more blog posts. So, for now, I would like to end this post by stressing that election accessibility is an increasingly important issue in Japan, not only because of the country’s legal commitments to the CRPD (as noted before), but also because of Japan’s rapidly ageing population. As people age, they are more likely to develop various health issues. This means that accessibility issues are relevant to everyone, as anyone can become disabled as they grow older. And since the health of democracies depends upon widespread and unimpeded political participation by citizens, we must continue deliberating on all the possible ways to make voting accessible to all—in Japan and beyond.
Bio: Mayuko Maeda is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University. Her research interests include disability rights movements, transnational activism, and Japanese politics. She is a Sigur Center Summer 2024 Research Fellow.
