What the mayor "abused" to win the election was...

I was elected mayor by fraudulently stealing the electoral rolls.

Through the Election Commission executives, the list was passed on to other members of Congress.

When problems came to light, he resigned as mayor, and then ran again and won re-election.

I followed a small town in Kanagawa Prefecture that was shaken by the list.

(Shintaro Toyoshima, Masaki Uzawa)

The mayor who should have quit runs for an unusual election

Kazuhiko Matsumoto, the former mayor of Manazuru Town, Kanagawa Prefecture, fraudulently used the electoral list containing voters' personal information such as names and addresses. He resigned in November 2021 after taking responsibility for copying and taking it out.

In the mayoral election one month later, the former mayor, former town assembly members, and former company executives ran as candidates to renovate the town.

5 days before the announcement when the candidates were thought to be complete. Matsumoto, who should have resigned after taking responsibility, announced his candidacy. It was a form of responding to the voices of some townspeople, "Please do your best again."

Handwritten apologies for the mistakes they made were written on leaflets that could be handed out. Only his name on the election poster. Is it a manifestation of feelings that cause scandals and can't face the townspeople?

In the election campaign, Matsumoto's attitude toward fraud and how to manage personal information were questioned.

It was Matsumoto who was elected in an election that followed an unusual development. The runner-up was a victory by 88 votes. Matsumoto has indicated that he will not receive his salary for a year.

Shocking Confession "I Leaked the Electoral List"

Let's take a look back at what was the fraud that was questioned in the election.

On October 26, Matsumoto held an emergency press conference. The Kanagawa Shimbun, a local paper, reported that the electoral list was leaked in Manazuru Town. I (Toyoshima) thought that the mayor would explain the employee's scandal.

What Matsumoto said was a shocking fact.

"I was the one who leaked the electoral list. When I was a town employee, I copied the 'electoral list' and used it for my mayoral election."

The electoral list, which contains personal information such as voters' names and addresses, is used by the Election Commission to manage voter information. and those related to them are also allowed to view them. However, because there is a risk that a large amount of personal information will be leaked, copying is not permitted, and there are penalties for violations.

In February 2020, when Matsumoto was the section chief of the town, he illegally copied the electoral list of all 6,600 voters and took it home, and supported the voters based on the list in the mayoral election in September of that year. It was revealed that he sent a postcard calling for

That's not all.

After being elected, before the town council elections held in September 2021, he asked the general secretary of the election management committee to deliver a copy of the list to three members of the Diet who were close to him. It says. A shocking confession by the top of the town that is hard to believe.

I started researching why this fraud was committed and what was behind it.

Member "I got a call from the town mayor"

I decided to hear directly from the three people who had the town mayor Matsumoto deliver the list.

Atsuhiko Mori is a former employee of the town. He served one term on the town council, but was defeated in the September election. Two months before the announcement, he received a phone call from Matsumoto.

"I received a phone call saying, 'Do you want a list to use for the election? It's a list of introducers used in the mayoral election, so it's safe.'

Then, the general secretary of the Election Commission brought a thick envelope saying, "I was asked by the mayor." Mori never used his roster and opened the envelope after the election. Then, a copy of the electoral list was found inside. "I was also a town official, so I immediately realized that this was not good. I consulted with my colleagues and the police."

Apart from Mori, the other two who received the list were the two who still serve as town councilors. He admitted that he had received both, but explained that he did not use them in the election, saying, "I burned them in my own field." Among them, Ken Aoki, a former town mayor and influential person, explained, ``Matsumoto and the general secretary were former subordinates, and considering the position when this came to light, I couldn't bring myself to speak up.'' Injustice came to light, and in November, the general secretary was to be subject to disciplinary dismissal.

Intense 'faction' battle that divides the town in two

When Matsumoto was a staff member, Mayor Aoki looked up to him and said, "I can do a good job." People around them called them the "Aoki faction".

Aoki's rival is the former town mayor, Uga Kazuaki, who ran for this election. Both were local classmates and were called the ``Aoki faction,'' while lawmakers close to Uga were called the ``Uga faction.''

Uga and Aoki have shared the town mayor seat for 16 years until 2020. It is said that personnel affairs were sometimes influenced by who was appointed to the top, and that there were times when suspicious documents flew around during election campaigns.

"I needed a 'friend' to break away from the 'faction'"?

When asked why he took out the list, he said, "I was naive about touching the law. I thought it would be okay."

When asked if factionalism was behind the fraud, he explained:

"Elections are like battles. After all, you can always have friends and enemies. It's been done endlessly. It always remains."

"If dividing the townspeople into two is a plus for Manazuru Town as a whole, I think it would be nice to continue, but I don't think it will be a plus at all."

"Even if I wanted to do politics that wasn't bound by 'factions' and ties, I needed 'friends' to do the politics I wanted to do. It may sound contradictory. But, If there is no one who agrees, nothing will go through. That was my thought.”

Sloppy management system that allowed anyone to take out the key

It has become clear that behind the fraudulence was a lax understanding of personal information and a violent political dispute.

Is the roster easy to carry around? The electoral rolls should be strictly managed as they contain voters' personal information.

Not only people involved in elections, but also news organizations can browse to select survey targets using statistical methods if it is recognized that the public interest is high in polls on politics and elections. The browsed list will be strictly managed and will be disposed of after the investigation is completed.

Transcription is allowed for viewing, and some places allow typing on a laptop computer. As mentioned above, copying is not permitted due to the risk of a large amount of personal information being leaked. It means that you have to spend time and effort to get the information.

When I interviewed Manazuru Town, where fraud occurred, I saw a sloppy management system.

According to the town, what was illegally taken out this time was used to confirm who voted at the polling station in the 2019 Kanagawa prefectural governor and prefectural assembly member elections.

After the election, the list was placed in a cardboard box and kept in a locked archive for the duration of the elected office.

The key to the library was kept in a locker on the second floor of the Town Hall. In order to borrow a key, I was supposed to ask the staff in charge to take out the key and reception book from the locker, and fill in the reception book with the date and time and name.

However, the locker was unlocked and any employee could take out the key. Matsumoto took the keys from his reception book at night after office hours when no one was there, and made a copy of the electoral list he took out of the archives.

"If anyone wanted to take it, they could bring the key. There was a sweet part."

After the problem, Manazuru-cho kept the keys strictly in a safe and made sure that they could not be taken out without the permission of the manager in charge.

Tip of the iceberg? Municipalities under strict management

Isn't the outflow of lists like Manazuru Town just the tip of the iceberg?

I asked how electoral lists are managed by the election management committees of 32 municipalities other than Manazuru Town in Kanagawa Prefecture. The following results were obtained.

Isehara City and Ninomiya Town, which answered that they had stored the items without locking them, said, ``Based on the incident in Manazuru Town, we will move them to a place where they can be locked.''

With the relocation to the new government building in 2020, Kaisei Town has kept the name list in the vault and managed it more strictly. The vault door can be opened by holding the employee ID card, which is an IC card. In addition, only some employees, such as those engaged in election affairs, are allowed to enter the room. It is said that the mayor and deputy mayor have not been granted authority because they do not need to enter. In addition, a system was introduced to keep a record of who entered and when.

"We believe that keeping records in the system will be a 'deterrent'. Since it is important information for residents, we believe that it is our mission to do what we can and manage it. (Shinji Nakatogawa, General Secretary, Kaisei Town Election Management Committee)

Of the cities that manage lists on the system, Fujisawa City and Ebina City print out only the corresponding part of the list when they receive an application to view the list, and discard it immediately after viewing. A Fujisawa city official said, "There is a risk of paper being lost. We want to reduce that risk by not leaving paper behind as much as possible."

In addition, Kawasaki City is currently preparing a paper list for viewing, but from January 2022, we are preparing to be able to view it on a tablet terminal.

In addition, Manazuru Town, which had been corrupted, said that Matsumoto, who became mayor again, will promote the digitization of documents in order to thoroughly manage personal information.

The key points are "strengthening awareness" and "systematization"

How should the list be managed? We asked Hayato Kojima, representative director of the Election System Practice Study Group, who has been engaged in election affairs in Kawasaki City for many years.

"Browsing itself is also important for the candidate to convey the necessary information to the voters in the election. For the development of democracy, both the candidate side and the political group side need to know who the voters are. We need to know a little, but if it is done in a way that is not proper and legal, it will affect the trust of the administration as a whole.”

``First of all, we should strengthen the awareness of compliance that we must strictly manage it.In past cases, managers often committed fraud, and it is not possible to show it to general employees.''

On top of that, he pointed out that it is necessary to proceed with system management. "If it's paper, it's in front of you, so if it's taken and copied, it's over at that point. In terms of data management, of course, it's strictly necessary to limit the people who can handle it with a password. It has the advantage of being manageable.We should promote digitization and computerization.”

What I learned from the interview was that Matsumoto, the lawmakers and the town hall were extremely naive about handling personal information. If access to the electoral list, which is currently permitted, is ignored as in this case, the system itself, which aims to ensure the fairness of election campaigns and the public interest, may be shaken. In order to support the foundation of democracy, I hope that the administration will realize appropriate management of personal information.

(honorifics omitted in part)