Public Comment System: Does Flood of Submissions to Government Reflect Public Opinion?
Comments have been submitted en masse to government ministries and agencies via the public comment system on such topics as nuclear power plant policy. These submissions are believed to have been organized via social media, making it difficult to say that they accurately reflect public opinion.
The public comment system was introduced in 2005 for the government to solicit a wide range of opinions from members of the public while it was formulating policies and rules.
Anyone can submit their comments by mail or through the government's e-Gov online system. People submitting comments do not have to provide their name or address, and there is no limit to the number of comments one person can submit.
Most policies elicit no comments, and if there are any, the number tends to be small. However, The Yomiuri Shimbun has found that in recent years, more and more topics have been receiving over 1,000 comments. In fiscal 2024, there were 10 topics that drew more than 10,000 comments each.
For example, about 200,000 submissions, a record high, were made on the topic of reusing soil removed during decontamination work following the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The majority of the comments were negative.
However, 96% of these comments were copies of sample texts, and more than 10,000 submissions contained identical sentences. In one case, a single person submitted 1,300 comments. It is believed that individuals and groups opposed to reusing the soil called for submissions on social media.
Certain comments were also found to have been submitted on topics related to infectious diseases such as COVID-19. These were likely an attempt to pressure the government by creating the impression that a significant majority of the public supports the views in these comments.
However, the government does not make policy decisions based on the number of comments it receives. Understandably, the government added a note to a form on the public comment system. 'Even if comments with the same content are submitted in large numbers, the number of comments will not be taken into consideration,' the note reads.
The government should actively disclose the number of comments with identical text as well as the number of comments submitted by the same individuals and make it possible to determine whether intentional manipulation has taken place, while also making the original purpose of the system more widely known among the public.
Of course, limiting opportunities for the public to express their opinions is not ideal. However, it is also true that officials in charge at the ministries and agencies are significantly burdened by the current situation, as they have to read through all the comments and manually prepare responses.
To reduce the administrative burden, a system should be introduced that automatically sorts comments with the same wording.
The public comment system provides an important opportunity to improve the fairness and transparency of government workings, but it is frequently criticized as nothing more than a way to rubber-stamp policies that have already been decided on. With this issue of mass submissions having cropped up, isn't now the time to review the system?
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 19, 2025)
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