The Constitutional Review Committee of the House of Representatives held discussions on the state of the National Referendum Law, which stipulates the procedure for amending the Constitution.
The LDP pointed out that the bill to amend the National Referendum Act, which was submitted to the House of Representatives last year, would improve the voting environment in line with the Public Offices Election Act, and that it was regrettable that deliberations had not been conducted, and called for its swift passage.
The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) argued that the National Referendum Law should include provisions such as lifting the ban on Internet voting on the premise of protecting personal information and giving consideration to people with disabilities and people living abroad in order to encourage participation in the referendum at large.
The Japan Restoration Committee proposed that a subcommittee be established under the review committee to discuss issues associated with the progress of digitalization, including the response to fake news, separately from the constitutional revision discussion.
The New Komeito Party called for consideration of self-regulation rules regarding the amount of paid advertisements issued by each political party during the referendum.
The People's Democratic Party (DPJ) pointed out that we should discuss how to ensure the function of fact-checking to confirm the authenticity of information dissemination through SNS.
The Communist Party stated that the people did not want to amend the Constitution and that there was no need for a referendum law to establish a procedure.