2025 POLLS: People with Intellectual Disabilities Create Election Dictionary

   Osaka, July 18 (Jiji Press)--A group of people with intellectual disabilities in Japan has created and published an online dictionary for teaching others on election-related terms and the steps to vote.
   With Sunday's election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament, drawing closer, in-person and online study sessions have been held using the dictionary.
   The 236-page "Senkyo no Kotoba" (terms of election) dictionary contains about 170 election-related terms, such as "the right to vote," "candidate" and "democracy," and the voting procedure is explained in hiragana letters in principle.
   The group of about 30 people, mostly users of Soshien, a social welfare organization for people with intellectual disabilities in the city of Higashiosaka in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, spent a year making the dictionary from April 2024.
   Yasuyuki Sugatani, 71, former associate professor at Kansai Medical University in the prefecture, who is an expert on elderly communication, was involved in the planning and supervision of the dictionary project.

(2025/07/18-08:30)

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