Archive for August, 2009

11-year-old accidentally allowed to vote in Japan – her vote will remain valid

A kid was allowed to vote in Osaka yesterday:

The 11-year-old elementary school girl, who visited a poll station in Osaka’s Nishi-Yodogawa Ward with her father, voted for a party in a proportional representation bloc as well as a review of the Supreme Court justices, the election committee said.

Election staff believed the girl, who is relatively tall for her age, was an adult voter. It was only after she finished voting that the staff noticed the error.

As it is impossible to identify the girl’s ballots, they have been regarded valid in accordance with the Public Offices Election Law.

This story really makes one wonder about the quality of the ballots from that ward. Why would staff allow someone to vote before checking their eligibility?

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Ken Tanaka Shows Latest Japanese Tech

Ken Tanaka recently came back to the motherland for a visit, and he discovered the joys of Tokyo Teleportation.

Ken also got a YouTube gathering going while he was here. I attended and won a YouTube shirt. See if you can spot me in this vid; I’m the one that looks like he is recovering from the brink of death, because I was.

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Koharu Kusumi touched by foreign rockstar

A member of the parody glam metal band Steel Panther makes Morning Musume’s Koharu Kusumi feel uncomfortable:

A bigger screen capture pics can be found here.

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Victory for Shinjiro Koizumi

While the rest of the LDP went down in flames last night, Junichiro Koizumi’s son Shinjiro managed to win his father’s seat:

Shinjiro Koizumi, 28, yesterday won his retiring father’s seat in Kanagawa prefecture southwest of Tokyo. He defeated Katsuhito Yokokume, 27, of the Democratic Party of Japan, which swept the ruling LDP out of government.

“I will work harder than anyone else,” Koizumi said on N-H-K television after his win.

In the above-embedded video clip, they mention that Shinjiro made a point of not seeking campaigning help from his father. Shinjiro wants to avoid the negative image of hereditary office holders and become a trusted politician in his own right.

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