Overseas voting for Japan’s general election begins

Overseas voting for Oct. 27 general election began Wednesday at Japanese embassies and other locations around the world.
Voting at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul began at 9:30 a.m.
“I was looking forward to the election because I saw my (South Korean) classmates being interested in South Korean national politics,” said Suzuha Iida, 21, a Japanese student from Tokyo currently studying at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Seoul National University.
“As I’m living overseas, I decided for whom to vote based on how (candidates) think about working with foreign countries,” a 49-year-old man from Shizuoka Prefecture said.
In Beijing, a voting station was set up at a hall inside the Japanese Embassy.
“I voted in hopes that the Japanese economy will improve and economic cooperation will advance,” a 49-year-old male voter who works at a Japanese company said.
A 57-year-old woman said she has lived in China for 25 years and she decided her vote based on her wish that “Japan-China ties, which have worsened from the past, return to normal.”
Voters in Shanghai cast their votes at the Consulate-General of Japan, which oversees an area home to about 50,000 Japanese nationals, including the city of Shanghai, Jiangsu province and Zhejiang province.
“Voting is still done with paper, but it feels outdated,” said a 49-year-old worker of an electronic materials maker stationed in China. “Electronic voting should be considered.”