The government has decided to conduct a blanket survey of all 18- and 19-year-olds to check their voting rate in House of Councilors election on Sunday, a source in the internal affairs ministry said.
The survey will cover all 2.4 million teenagers now eligible to cast ballots under the new minimum voting age of 18, down from 20 under the revised Public Offices Election Law.
The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry has notified election administration commissions in all 47 prefectures of the survey, which is aimed at providing detailed data from the first national election since the law took effect on June 19 to better reflect young people's opinions in politics, the source said Friday.
The ministry usually only conducts sampling surveys of voting rates by age in light of the extra work municipal governments have to bear.
According to the source, the survey will be conducted in two phases. The ministry will first announce voter turnout based on thousands of voters sampled from municipalities in each prefecture on Monday evening, the day after the Upper House election.
Then it will launch a survey of all teenagers, which is likely to take about a month or so before the ministry can announce the results, the source said.
The voting rate in the mayoral election in Ukiha, Fukuoka Prefecture, last Sunday, the first in which teenage voters were eligible to participate, was 38.38 percent, according to the city election administration commission.