Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/120

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JAPAN BY THE JAPANESE

The number of members at the time the new law came into force was 376, a sum less than the above total by five, since the three members for the Hokkaido district and the two members for the Okinawa ken are not included, the new law being as yet not in force in these electoral districts (Chapter I.).

The execution of the provisions concerning voting at elections is placed in the hands of the Sho-cho (head of a city), the Cho-cho (head of a town), or the Son-cho (head of a village), of the place where the election is going on (Article IV.). The duties which to the official in charge of the voting may be summarized as follows:

  1. Publication of the places to be used as polling-stations.
  2. Opening and closing the polling-stations.
  3. Deciding (pro tempore) whether a ballot-paper should be accepted or refused.
  4. Keeping the minutes of the voting.
  5. Transmission of ballot-boxes, minutes, and electoral lists.
  6. The maintenance of order in the polling-stations.

Every city, town, and village is an electoral district, so it is convenient that there should be a place set apart for counting the votes. Since, however, the number of ballot-papers in one district sometimes amounts to 30,000 or 40,000, great confusion would be caused by carrying on the voting and the counting of votes in the same place. Hence a special place is appointed where, in the interval between the voting and the election, the ballot-papers may be opened and counted. All voting-papers from each polling-station are collected and taken to the place appointed, and there the scrutineer in charge opens and examines them. The districts allotted to a scrutineer correspond with gun or shi, so that the person entrusted with the scrutiny of votes is either the Gun-cho (head of a gun) or the Shi-cho (heed of a shi).

A scrutineer’s duties are, briefly, as follows:

  1. Publishing the names of the places to be used for scrutinizing the voting-papers.
  2. Opening and closing the place where voting-papers are to be scrutinized.
  3. Counting the voting-papers.
  4. Confirming and overruling the decisions made pro tempore by the supervisor of a polling-station.
  5. Examining the voting-papers.
  6. Ruling on the effect of a ballot.
  7. Keeping minutes of the proceedings at the scrutinizing of voting-papers.
  8. Preserving the minutes of these proceedings.
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