Monday, October 24, 2005
Local elections end in victory, defeat
My town, anyway, seems cleaner and fresher today. It's probably due not only to the torrents of rain over the weekend, but also to the completion of the local elections for Tsuruoka City Council. No more campaign trucks with their accursed strapped-on speakers! No more amplified screaming 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., "SUZUKI! SUZUKI! VOTE FOR SUZUKI!"
Today I arrived for work at City Hall to see cameras and reporters gathered around the front entrance, and a line of male dignitaries dressed in black obviously waiting to welcome someone. Bemusedly climbing the stairs to my office, I found that almost every chair was empty and the usually bustling third floor was quiet as a cemetary. "Where is everyone?" I asked.
"They're all downstairs greeting the newly elected city councillors," was the answer, along with a "Why aren't YOU there?" kind of stare. I didn't know. . . I'm not wearing a tie today. . . The election only finished last night--How the hell . . .? Half a dozen excuses sprang to my lips but I bit them back and put on my Mr. Innocent face.
The election's been over for all of 17 hours, and the results are already published in the newspaper, the winners notified, and the opening ceremonies begun. What monumental feat of organization and efficiency, what great technological achievement of the 21st cenury, what in the world could facilitate such quick action on the part of the usually sedate Tsuruokans? I had to ask.
"Do voters use machines to make their choice?" No.
"Do they have computers and vote online?" No.
"Do they use machine-scorable forms like the tests we took in school?" No.
"Well, how then?"
"Voters write the name of their choice for city council vertically in Kanji on their ballots by hand. When the polls closed at 8 last night, the ballots were transported to a central location, where local officials separated them into stacks for each candidate, then counted the ballots in each stack. By midnight they had the numbers."
Midnight? Yep, 12 a.m. Roughly 70,000 votes were tallied and the winners made public in just four hours. Amazing. The system of allowing each voter to place only one vote, rather than one vote for each council position, means the counting is easy.
Since no one challenged the incumbent mayor Tomizuka, his name wasn't even on the ballot and he won without a fight. There was more competition, though, for the city council seats. I wrote in another post that the majority of candidates usually win, but Tsuruoka City now includes five newly-absorbed towns and villages, each with its own councillors who all stood for (re-)election for their sub-district of new Tsuruoka City, but each had far fewer seats than when they were independent municipalities. Here are the number of newly-elected city councillors compared with the number of candidates who ran for each district within new Tsuruoka City:
That said, congratulations are in order to a city that managed such a smooth merger and transition, followed by an election on a rainy day that still managed to bring out more than 60% of the electorate. And, of course, let's not forget our city environment. We can all now breathe a sigh of relief, and our blood pressure can drop back to normal as the air is filled once again with only the sounds of a Japanese fall and the regular comings and goings of the people of a small northern city.
And to my 29-year-old friend and former student Yuki who failed to win his seat in Fujishima, condolences. Tsuruokans seem to prefer older representatives. Your time will come again.
To you, dear reader, until next time . . . ¶ 10/24/2005 04:21:00 PM
Today I arrived for work at City Hall to see cameras and reporters gathered around the front entrance, and a line of male dignitaries dressed in black obviously waiting to welcome someone. Bemusedly climbing the stairs to my office, I found that almost every chair was empty and the usually bustling third floor was quiet as a cemetary. "Where is everyone?" I asked.
"They're all downstairs greeting the newly elected city councillors," was the answer, along with a "Why aren't YOU there?" kind of stare. I didn't know. . . I'm not wearing a tie today. . . The election only finished last night--How the hell . . .? Half a dozen excuses sprang to my lips but I bit them back and put on my Mr. Innocent face.
The election's been over for all of 17 hours, and the results are already published in the newspaper, the winners notified, and the opening ceremonies begun. What monumental feat of organization and efficiency, what great technological achievement of the 21st cenury, what in the world could facilitate such quick action on the part of the usually sedate Tsuruokans? I had to ask.
"Do voters use machines to make their choice?" No.
"Do they have computers and vote online?" No.
"Do they use machine-scorable forms like the tests we took in school?" No.
"Well, how then?"
"Voters write the name of their choice for city council vertically in Kanji on their ballots by hand. When the polls closed at 8 last night, the ballots were transported to a central location, where local officials separated them into stacks for each candidate, then counted the ballots in each stack. By midnight they had the numbers."
Midnight? Yep, 12 a.m. Roughly 70,000 votes were tallied and the winners made public in just four hours. Amazing. The system of allowing each voter to place only one vote, rather than one vote for each council position, means the counting is easy.
Since no one challenged the incumbent mayor Tomizuka, his name wasn't even on the ballot and he won without a fight. There was more competition, though, for the city council seats. I wrote in another post that the majority of candidates usually win, but Tsuruoka City now includes five newly-absorbed towns and villages, each with its own councillors who all stood for (re-)election for their sub-district of new Tsuruoka City, but each had far fewer seats than when they were independent municipalities. Here are the number of newly-elected city councillors compared with the number of candidates who ran for each district within new Tsuruoka City:
- Old Tsuruoka: 23/30
- Fujishima: 4/8
- Haguro: 3/8
- Kushibiki: 3/6
- Atsumi: 3/8
- Asahi: 2/6
That said, congratulations are in order to a city that managed such a smooth merger and transition, followed by an election on a rainy day that still managed to bring out more than 60% of the electorate. And, of course, let's not forget our city environment. We can all now breathe a sigh of relief, and our blood pressure can drop back to normal as the air is filled once again with only the sounds of a Japanese fall and the regular comings and goings of the people of a small northern city.
And to my 29-year-old friend and former student Yuki who failed to win his seat in Fujishima, condolences. Tsuruokans seem to prefer older representatives. Your time will come again.
To you, dear reader, until next time . . . ¶ 10/24/2005 04:21:00 PM
