Snow, Bitter Cold Disrupt Election Preparations in Northern Japan; Election Signboard Numbers Cut, Polling Station Opening Times Changed

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:16 JST, January 27, 2026

People in northern Japan are facing various hardships in a midwinter battle for the House of Representatives election, as voting and counting will take place in February for the first time in 36 years, with official campaigning kicking off on Tuesday.

Amid a lingering cold wave in northern Japan, campaign staff are ramping up cold-weather measures to protect people listening to stump speeches and campaign workers, while also being kept busy shoveling snow at their offices.

“I’m afraid this might not be enough for this cold,” a staff member in charge of stumping for a candidate in Hokkaido Constituency No. 11 muttered Monday, checking cold weather gear, such as disposable heat pads, snow boots and thick gloves.

The Hokkaido Constituency No. 11, covering Obihiro and other areas, is among the coldest in the prefecture.

Given that the town of Rikubetsu in the constituency recorded a temperature of minus 22.9 C on Monday morning, campaign teams are also being forced to battle the extreme cold.

“We are concerned that elderly people and others might fall ill after waiting outside,” a member of the campaign office said. The office plans to reduce the number of street speeches and switch to small indoor meetings and speech events.

Snow is posing a challenge for campaign offices. “An election at this time of year is just too much to handle,” said a 59-year-old male secretary for a candidate in Aomori Constituency No. 1, as he grumbled with a snow shovel in hand.

Election signboards reduced

How to handle election signboards was the most pressing issue for election commissions in regions with heavy snowfall ahead of the campaign.

As conventional locations such as vacant lots along roads are buried in snow, local authorities have changed installation methods or reduced the number of signboards in various places.

In Uonuma, Niigata Prefecture, on Saturday, a 68-year-old president of a local construction company, working under contract for the municipal election administration commission, dug out a roadside guardrail amid more than 2 meters of snow and tied a signboard to it with rope.

While signboards are normally set up by hammering stakes into the ground, he noted that the snow has made this difficult.

The municipal election administration commission took creative measures such as attaching signboards to bridge railings. However, as some locations remained unreachable, the commission had to cut back the number of signboards to 163 from the usual 223.

Voting hours shortened

The weather is also affecting voting opportunities. In Tadami, Fukushima Prefecture, where snowfall typically reaches around 2 meters, the opening of polling stations on Feb. 8 will be pushed back from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

The town decided on the delay to secure time for snow removal in case of warning-level heavy snow.

The neighboring town of Minami-Aizu, Fukushima Prefecture, will move closing times for 12 of its 30 polling stations to 5 p.m. This is intended to prevent delays in transporting ballot boxes due to deteriorating road conditions, according to the town.