In my previous post, one commenter asked how the Japanese handle election politics. As far as I know, voting in Japan is non-compulsory, elections are held on a Saturday, and they use first past the post (though I’m not sure about this). I don’t follow politics here much, but I think Japan could probably be safely said to be suffering a crisis of legitimacy in its political leadership, having brought the popular political notion of “tweedledum and tweedledee” to new heights (the two main parties are splinters of each other). Nonetheless turnout can be quite high by the standards of these things; it was 58% for the Tokyo gubernatorial election in March 2011. I think for national elections it is much lower, and there is a rural gerrymander (a typical problem of single member representative systems); this gerrymander is part of the reason for the continued practice of whaling in international waters.
As a consequence of this typical problem of non-compulsory voting systems, the Japanese electoral commission used a typically Japanese campaign to get more people to vote: they got a group of idols dressed as schoolgirls to run a cheerleading campaign for voting, that can be seen here. The actual campaign starts at about 20 seconds. This was running non-stop on the trains here up until the election, and its main theme is that voting isn’t just for the day; you can pre-vote for up to 14 days before, and I think they also mention postal voting. It’s hilariously cute, especially the way after the girls run to the front to talk their head bobbles about, doing nothing for a moment or two. I saw this video soooo many times during my daily commute… I think in addition to advertising pre-poll voting it also served the secondary use of generally reminding people to vote: one at least has the benefit of sharing a polling booth with a schoolgirl.
This shows the problem of non-compulsory voting and the way it creates biased samples very nicely. Will this advert appeal to all sections of society equally well? If not, will it function to raise representation in some groups relative to others? If so, you have created a biased sample of your community. Unless you put a chip in everyone’s head to accurately read their voting preferences, you can’t be sure that your sample is unbiassed. Maybe they’ll try that next time around… or maybe someone will suggest making it compulsory, as the next best option…
Compromise and Conceit 
May 7, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“Unless you put a chip in everyone’s head to accurately read their voting preferences, you can’t be sure that your sample is unbiassed. Maybe they’ll try that next time around… or maybe someone will suggest making it compulsory, as the next best option…”
Thank God you’ve finally come up with a realistic solution. Now we can avoid compulsory voting! Chips for everyone! Except the Arab world, for reasons that aren’t clearly explained in the New York Times.
May 8, 2011 at 5:44 am
Chips? Did you know….Salt and Vinegar chips are much stronger in Canada then Australia? And you can’t get twisties either. But you can get Tim-Tams.
All I really knew about Japan was that the LDP mafia seemed to run the place for ever, until a year or two. And that generally the PM of Japan was a transitory figure. That’s sort of good- if you don’t like the PM you just wait a while. But the gerrymander explains a lot about the LDP dominating and why Japan makes the decisions that it does.
That ad was on your commute? You have my sympathies. It is cute, but to be honest it grated with me by the time it finished, let alone seeing every day.
May 8, 2011 at 7:45 am
Scott, look you said a lot of worthwhile points in your post, but the point I’d like to return to is:
“Salt and Vinegar chips are much stronger in Canada then Australia”
Could you tell me more about this? Salt & Vinegar = da bomb.
May 8, 2011 at 1:26 pm
I have to agree with Paul on this crucial issue. But are they sweeter? If they got any sweeter they’d be crap. Maybe the lack of salt and vinegar chips in Japan explains the poor state of their politics.
Scott, not only was the ad on my commute, but it was on mute…
May 11, 2011 at 6:18 am
Mute? Well, that would not be so bad, I suppose.
The chips here are mostly vinegar I’m afraid. Certainly not sweet, they are overwhelmingly sour. My wife, when she first came to Australia, stated her aversion to salt and vinegar chips, but when she tried the Australian version she was quickly converted. (She also took quite a liking to vegemite, she’s quite a gal!) The Canucks have a wide range of different BBQ chips, which are a big go here, but they don’t taste radically different. It’s only the salt and vinegar ones that are strange. I don’t know why, and if Kevin Rudd can’t fix the Canadian error in this receipie then he’s not worth it as Foreign Minister.
In the part of Canada I live, there’s a lot of British immigrants so there’s a wide range of fish and chip shops, so actual chips, from a fish and chippery, are excellent. I must also report that ‘poutine’, a delicacy from Quebec, is an excellent innovation which deserves a wider outing. This is basically chips and gravy, with extra cheese and other medically dubious ingredients, but is delicious.