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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NAHA 000253 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  12/20/2031 
TAGS: JA MARR PREL
SUBJECT: HOW THE LDP MACHINE USED PRE-ELECTION DAY VOTING TO WIN THE 
OKINAWA GOVERNORSHIP 
 
REF: NAHA 00243 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Kevin K. Maher, Consul General, American 
Consulate General Naha, DOS. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1. (C) Summary. In the November 19 Okinawan Gubernatorial 
election, conservative Governor Hirokazu NAKAIMA beat his rival 
candidate reformist Keiko ITOKAZU by over 37,000 votes (347,303 
votes to 309,985), in an election that the press was reporting 
as too close to call right up to election day.  Exit polling on 
election day showed Itokazu in the lead by three to four 
percentage points.  Nakaima's victory was due to the large 
number of ballots cast before election day (over 110,000, 16 
percent of all votes) and the fact he won an estimated 70-plus 
percent of those pre-election day votes.  The pre-election day 
voting system (PDVS) was established in 2003 as a way of 
increasing voter turnout by allowing people to vote up to ten 
days before the election.  Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 
Okinawa and Komeito Okinawa officials tell us they took 
advantage of the system to secure votes for Nakaima by strongly 
encouraging supporters to vote early and report back to the 
party about who they voted for. LDP Okinawa officials plan to 
use the system in future important Okinawa elections but do not 
believe the party could apply it successfully in other areas of 
Japan.  They believe Okinawa's strong interpersonal ties, 
concentration of small and medium-sized businesses, and high 
voting rate make it uniquely situated to take advantage of the 
PDVS.  End Summary. 
 
PDVS Established to Increase Voter Turnout~ 
 
¶2. (SBU) In 2003, Japan established a nationwide system in which 
voters can vote up to ten days before the actual election day. 
Called the Pre-election Day Voting System (PDVS), it allows 
voters to use personal reasons such as golf outings, shopping, 
spending time with family, and personal vacation as reasons to 
vote prior to election day.   The voting system was relaxed in 
order to reverse the declining voting rate by simply making it 
easier for people to vote. 
 
~Benefits Strong Party Organizations ~ 
 
¶3. (C)  LDP Okinawa Executive Director General Hiroshi NAKAMATSU 
tells us the new system played to the strengths of highly 
organized groups in general, and the LDP in particular.  Because 
of the LDP's strong organizational skills, it was able to 
effectively use the pre-election day voting system.  Okinawa had 
about 110,000 pre-election day votes, too many for a few people 
or a small organization to handle.  Nakamatsu said at least 
1,000 people were needed just to organize and move to the polls 
several thousand people a day. 
 
~But Conservatives More than Reformists 
 
¶4. (C) Komeito Okinawa Chairman Tomonori ITOSU noted that as far 
as organizational skills are concerned, reformist and 
 
NAHA 00000253  002 OF 003 
 
 
conservative parties are about equal.  Both camps garnered over 
300,000 votes in the gubernatorial election.  However, in 
getting pre-election day votes, the conservatives had an 
advantage.  Nakamatsu and Itosu noted that reformist-supporting 
organizations were mainly labor and teachers' unions and 
government workers.  Labor unions could not give their members 
time off from work and both union members and government workers 
would be required to take their own personal leave time to go 
vote prior to election day (which is on Sunday in Japan). 
 
¶5. (C) On the other hand, many conservative supporters were 
businesses that could and did give their workers time off to go 
to the polls early.  Nakamatsu also said that industry groups 
like Kanehide construction, Kokuba construction, and Ryukyu Oil 
(former Governor Keiichi INAMINE's company) encouraged their 
employees to vote for Nakaima.  The companies gave employees 
several hours off with the tacit understanding that they would 
use this time to go vote for Nakaima.  He added that the LDP 
political support groups (koenkai) also called supporters and 
friends, asking them to vote prior to the election.  Itosu said 
since most of the people encouraging conservative supporters to 
vote were friends and family, the conservative side could easily 
confirm who they voted for.  They would simply call them and 
ask, "You voted for Nakaima, right?" Nakamatsu said that LDP 
Okinawa even provided transportation to the polling areas.  He 
remarked that this was very close to being an election campaign 
violation and thus the party only employed it in very important 
elections.  He also added that the Okinawa Prefectural Police 
Department was watching the LDP closely because of this. 
 
¶6. (C) Komeito's Itosu noted that in the past the reformists had 
been helped by bad weather, since their supporters turned out on 
election day even if it rained or was cold. However, 
conservative supporters tended not to show up if the weather was 
bad.  In this regard the conservative camp really benefited from 
the fact that under the new PDVS conservative supporters had 
several days in which they could go vote.  Sometime within the 
ten pre-election days time period, there had to be one good 
weather day. 
 
¶7. (C) Conservative officials in Nago City, the future 
relocation site of Marine Corp Air Station (MCAS) Futenma, were 
particularly adept in using the pre-election voting system in 
the January 2006 Nago mayoral election, in which over 30 percent 
of the votes were cast before election day.  Nakamatsu noted 
that the Nago LDP in the past had been active in getting people 
to use the absentee ballot system and then the PDVS when it was 
enacted in 2003.  The LDP Okinawa used the lessons learned from 
the Nago elections in planning for last month's gubernatorial 
election. 
 
Okinawan Environment Suited to Take Advantage of PDVS 
 
¶8. (C)  Our contacts think Okinawa is uniquely suited to take 
advantage of the pre-election day voting system.  Nakamatsu 
thinks the reason the pre-election voting rate was high in 
Okinawa is because Okinawa has a lot of small and medium-sized 
businesses.  Employees at these companies have a closer 
 
NAHA 00000253  003 OF 003 
 
 
relationship to their bosses than those in large companies and 
could be more easily encouraged to vote for a particular 
candidate.  He noted that even in Okinawa's largest city, Naha, 
most of the businesses are small-medium sized companies.  Itosu 
noted that in big companies, like those in Tokyo, the influence 
of a boss on his workers is much less.  So even if the company 
encouraged workers to vote and gave them time off, many would 
just say this is a personal decision and ignore the boss. Itosu 
also attributed Okinawa conservative success to the fact that 
personal connections are stronger here than in the rest of Japan 
and that Okinawans also are more interested in elections than 
other prefectures. Okinawa's voting rate has historically been 
higher than that of mainland Japan. Itosu said that Komeito 
members from other prefectures often are very surprised by 
Okinawans' interest level during elections. 
 
¶9.  (C) The impact of the PDVS in this election was significant. 
 Although election officials do not publicly report the voting 
results broken out by election day and pre-election day, our 
press contacts and party officials tell us Nakaima received over 
70 percent of the PDVS vote.  On election day itself, exit polls 
indicated that reformist Itokazu led by three to four points. 
Clearly it was the early voting that offset Itokazu's election 
day lead.  Only a well-financed and organized LDP and Komeito 
could have pulled this off.  One well-informed newspaper editor 
here told us the rumor on the street is that each vote for 
Nakaima cost about Yen 5,000, which would mean the LDP and 
Komeito would have put about Yen 1.7 billion (Dols 15 million at 
115 yen/$1) into the campaign, a lot for a local election in 
Japan. 
 
LDP To Use PDVS in Upcoming Okinawa Elections 
 
¶10. (C) LDP Okinawa plans to make use of the pre-election day 
voting system in future important elections, such as Ginowan 
City mayoral and upper house Diet elections in 2007. The LDP 
sees the Ginowan City election as very important because it 
wants to have the city that currently hosts MCAS Futenma 
announce that it would be satisfied with relocating Futenma to 
Nago under the agreed realignment plan as an effective way to 
eliminate the "danger" posed by the air station.  Nakamatsu told 
us the LDP Okinawa already has established a pre-election vote 
section to take advantage of pre-election day ballots in these 
upcoming races. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) We expect the PDVS to continue to be important in 
Okinawa.  But given the unique circumstances of the elections 
here, it remains to be seen if the national LDP will try to use 
this system to its advantage in upcoming elections in mainland 
Japan. 
MAHER