With the rising number of celebrity candidates in Japan’s Diet elections comes a rising number of possible ways to vote for them, according to this article: 「柔ちゃん」○「金メダリスト」×＝ニックネームで投票すると…―総務省・参院選. A hurried sort-of-paraphrased translation is below.

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Many candidates for the House of Councillors election taking place this Sunday] are famous figures from the sporting or entertainment worlds, and are perhaps better known by their nicknames than by their real names. What happens when someone casts a ballot for one of them using a nickname instead of the formally registered real name?

Japanese election law states that votes must be counted for a candidate when they are clearly meant to be cast for that person, even if they aren’t written properly. [No hanging chad or punch holes in this system; names are written by hand into spaces on the ballot sheets.] This means nicknames could be acceptable, depending on the officer at the polling station—similarly written votes could be viewed differently by different people.

Tani Ryōko (née Tamura), an olympic gold medalist judoka, is one of the best-known celebs in the running this time around. She’s also well known as “Yawara-chan,” after the popular manga series Yawara! It’s indeed possible that votes for that name (whether written as 柔ちゃん, やわらちゃん, ヤワラちゃん, or Yawaraちゃん) could be counted for Tani.

Unlikely to be accepted, however, are votes referring to a candidate by his or her profession or other characteristic. Ballots bearing votes for “the gold medalist” or “the 48 kg weight class judoka” will be void. There’s a strong possibility that votes for “Tamura Ryōko” will count [take that, LDP guys opposed to separate names for married couples!], but a simple “Tamura” will not, as there are other candidates with that family name in the running this time, who would end up splitting the pool of votes cast in that format.

Clumsily cast votes for “Kawara-chan” or “Tawara-chan” will be left to the judgment of the officials on hand at each polling station, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ election department. “Problem votes” including those cast for candidates’ nicknames are pooled at each station and gone over by the responsible official with observers to witness the goings-on. The authorities urge people to write candidate and party names clearly and accurately to avoid slowing down the count with this process.