A group of people with intellectual disabilities in Japan has created and published an online dictionary for teaching others about election-related terms and the steps to vote.
With Sunday's election for the House of Councilors — the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament — drawing closer, in-person and online study sessions have been held using the dictionary.
The 236-page "Senkyo no Kotoba" (terms of election) dictionary contains about 170 election-related terms, such as "the right to vote," "candidate" and "democracy," and the voting procedure is explained in hiragana letters in principle.
The group of about 30 people, mostly users of Soshien, a social welfare organization for people with intellectual disabilities in the city of Higashiosaka in Osaka Prefecture, spent a year making the dictionary from April 2024.
Yasuyuki Sugatani, 71, former associate professor at Kansai Medical University in the prefecture, who is an expert on elderly communication, was involved in the planning and supervision of the dictionary project.
The dictionary was published on Soshien's website in March this year. Since May, the dictionary has been used in online study sessions held jointly by seven organizations for people with mental disabilities in Hokkaido, Okinawa and other prefectures.
At a study session, participants worked on converting the content of an election campaign bulletin, mainly the policy pledges of political parties and candidates, into hiragana. Since such campaign pledges are written with many kanji characters, this has been a major issue for many people with intellectual disabilities.
"I'd like politicians to look through the dictionary firsthand and understand it," Eiichi Toyota, 41, a participant, said. "I want them to use words that are easier to understand."
Yoshimi Hayashi, 75, who heads Soshien, said, "The participants were very enthusiastic in what they were doing, and it seemed like they were having fun."
"Many facilities supporting (people with intellectual disabilities) don't have the time and resources to hold such study sessions," she said. "I hope the central and local governments take initiative in helping disabled people vote in elections," Hayashi added.
According to Sugatani, voter turnout among people with intellectual disabilities tends to be low.
"I hope that they will have the opportunity to think for themselves and participate in politics by learning about the election using the dictionary," he said.
According to the welfare ministry, around 953,000 eligible voters in Japan have intellectual disabilities.
The dictionary can be downloaded for free at https://www.soshien.com/senkyo/index.html.
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