Seeing duplicates of a poster on election boards? It’s due to a loophole.

Ahead of the Tokyo gubernatorial election, residents in the capital are seeing duplicates of the same poster — some of which are unrelated to the poll — dominating half of the wooden boards set up for candidates in the race, as a minor party takes advantage of a legal loophole.

Curious passersby are posting on social media pictures of such boards — placed by the local election commission in highly visible locations, such as next to schools and parks and along sidewalks — and questioning whether such a practice is allowed under election law.

The short answer is yes.

The man behind the publicity stunt is Takashi Tachibana, who heads the NHK Kara Kokumin o Mamoru To (Party to Protect the People from NHK) that is backing 24 candidates in the July 7 race, thereby securing 24 of each board’s 48 spots.

For weeks — long before the campaign kicked off last Thursday — the party had been soliciting sponsors who were willing to pay up to ¥25,000 ($156) in the form of a donation for the 24 spots on any one of the boards set up in 14,000 locations in the capital to promote whatever they want, even if it is unrelated to Tokyo policies or the election.

“Let’s dominate the poster board!” reads the party’s website. “We’re going to destroy the common perception of poster boards!”

There have even been posters promoting sex entertainment facilities in Shibuya Ward — one of them containing a QR code linking to what appeared to be a former sex entertainment worker’s social media account — which prompted the police to issue a warning to Tachibana over possible violations of the sex entertainment operations law.

Tachibana said on his YouTube channel that the posters have since been replaced.

Police also issued a warning last week to an independent candidate who had put up a poster featuring a woman in a state of near-nudity, for a suspected violation of Tokyo’s anti-nuisance ordinance. The candidate had cited freedom of expression as the basis for the poster.

Internal affairs minister Takeaki Matsumoto, whose ministry the election law comes under, said last Friday that posters other than those of the candidates in the election should not be posted on the wooden boards. These boards are meant to promote the candidates and their policies during elections, he said.

But he also admitted that the election law does not place restrictions on the content of the posters on the boards apart from situations in which they contain details about other candidates or factually incorrect information.

Norihisa Tamura, the deputy policy chief for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said in a Fuji TV program on Sunday that a revision should be considered for the law to prevent the posting of posters unrelated to elections on the boards.

“It’s a massive success,” Tachibana said in a news conference on Friday, referring to the fact that he was able to raise awareness of the legal loopholes surrounding the wooden boards.