Elections in Japan

Japan

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The Japanese political system has three types of elections: general elections to the House of Representatives held every four years (unless the lower house is dissolved earlier), elections to the House of Councillors held every three years to choose one-half of its members, and local elections held every four years for offices in prefectures, cities, and villages. Elections are supervised by election committees at each administrative level under the general direction of the Central Election Administration Committee, an attached organization to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). The minimum voting age is twenty years; voters must satisfy a three-month residency requirement before being allowed to cast a ballot. For those seeking office, there are two sets of age requirements: twenty-five years of age for admission to the House of Representatives and most local offices, and thirty years of age for admission to the House of Councillors and the prefectural governorship. Each deposit for candidacy is 3 million yen (30 thousand dollars) for single-seat constituency and 6 million yen (60 thousand dollars) for proportional representation.

National elections

The Diet (Kokkai) has two chambers. The House of Representatives (Shugi-in) has 480 members, elected for a four year term, 300 members in single-seat constituencies and 180 members by proportional representation in 11 block districts. In this system, each voter votes twice, once for a candidate in the local constituency, and once for a party, each of which has a list of candidates for each block district. The local constituencies are decided by plurality, and the block seats are then handed out to the parties proportionally (by the D'Hondt method) to their share of the vote, who then appoint members from their lists. Often the parties assign the block seats to unsuccessful single-seat candidates.

The House of Councillors (Sangi-in) has 242 members, elected for a six year term, 146 members in multi-seat constituencies (prefectures) and 96 by proportional representation on the national level. Half of the House of Councillors comes up for election every three years.

For many years Japan was a one party dominant state until 1993 with the Liberal Democratic Party as the ruling party. They lost office and then soon regained power. The 2009 elections handed the first non-LDP victory to the Democratic Party of Japan. Due to the majoritarian parallel voting system it is unlikely that Japan will develop a multi-party system, but there is speculation that after 2009, Japan will develop a two-party system.^{[citation needed]}

According to a survey by Yomiuri Shimbun in April 2010, almost half of Japanese voters do not support any political parties due to political inefficiency.

Latest results

2010 House of Councillors election

Main article: Japanese House of Councillors election, 2010

 Summary of the 11 July 2010 Japanese House of Councillors election results

Alliances and parties		Prefectural constituency vote				National PR vote				Elected in 2010	Seats not up	Total seats	+/−
		Votes	%	Seats	+/−	Votes	%	Seats	+/−
	Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Minshutō – 民主党	22,756,000.342	38.97%	28	8	18,450,139.059	31.56%	16	2	44	62	106	10
	People's New Party (PNP) Kokuminshintō – 国民新党	167,555.000	0.29%	0	2	1,000,036.492	1.71%	0	1	0	3	3	3
	New Party Nippon (NPN) Shintō Nippon – 新党日本	no candidate								0	1	1	0
	DPJ–PNP Coalition	22,923,555.342	39.25%	28	10	19,450,175.551	33.27%	16	3	44	66	110	13
	Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Jimintō – 自民党	19,496,083.000	33.38%	39	14	14,071,671.422	24.07%	12	1	51	33	84	13
	New Komeito Party (NKP) Kōmeitō – 公明党	2,265,818.000	3.88%	3	0	7,639,432.739	13.07%	6	2	9	10	19	2
	New Renaissance Party (NRP) Shintō Kaikaku – 新党改革	625,431.000	1.07%	0	3	1,172,395.190	2.01%	1	1	1	1	2	4
	former LDP–NKP—NRP Coalition	22,387,332.000	38.33%	42	11	22,883,529.351	39.15%	19	4	61	44	105	7
	Your Party (YP) Minna no Tō – みんなの党	5,977,391.485	10.24%	3	3	7,943,649.369	13.59%	7	7	10	1	11	10
	Japanese Communist Party (JCP) Kyōsantō – 共産党	4,256,400.000	7.29%	0	0	3,563,556.590	6.10%	3	1	3	3	6	1
	Social Democratic Party (SDP) Shamintō – 社民党	602,684.000	1.03%	0	0	2,242,735.155	3.84%	2	0	2	2	4	0
	Sunrise Party of Japan (SPJ) Tachini – たち日	328,475.000	0.56%	0	1	1,232,207.336	2.11%	1	1	1	2	3	0
	Happiness Realization Party (HRP) Kōfuku – 幸福	291,810.000	0.50%	0	0	229,026.162	0.39%	0	0	0	1	1	0
	Independents	1,314,313.027	2.25%	0	2	—				0	2	2	2
	Other parties	318,847.000	0.55%	0	0	908,582.924	1.55%	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total (turnout 57.92%)		58,400,807.899	100.0%	73	1	58,453,432.438	100.0%	48	0	121	121	242	1

2009 General election

 Summary of the 30 August 2009 Japanese House of Representatives election results

Alliances and parties		Local constituency vote			PR block vote			Total seats	+/−
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats		(pre-election)	(last gen. election)
	Democratic Party (DPJ)	33,475,335	47.43%	221	29,844,799	42.41%	87	308	193	195
	Social Democratic Party (SDP)	1,376,739	1.95%	3	3,006,160	4.27%	4	7	0	0
	People's New Party (PNP)	730,570	1.04%	3	1,219,767	1.73%	0	3	1	1
	New Party Nippon	220,223	0.31%	1	528,171	0.75%	0	1	1	0
	New Party Daichi	no district candidates			433,122	0.62%	1	1	0	0
	Ruling DPJ–SDP–PNP coalition & parliamentary allies	35,802,866	50.73%	228	35,032,019	49.78%	92	320	193	194
	Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)	27,301,982	38.68%	64	18,810,217	26.73%	55	119	181	177
	New Komeito Party (NKP)	782,984	1.11%	0	8,054,007	11.45%	21	21	10	10
	Japan Renaissance Party	36,650	0.05%	0	58,141	0.08%	0	0	1	0
	Opposition LDP–NKP coalition & parliamentary allies	28,121,613	39.84%	64	26,922,365	38.26%	76	140	192	187
	Japanese Communist Party (JCP)	2,978,354	4.22%	0	4,943,886	7.03%	9	9	0	0
	Your Party (YP)	615,244	0.87%	2	3,005,199	4.27%	3	5	1	5
	Others	1,077,543	1.53%	0	466,786	0.66%	0	0	0	0
	Independents	1,986,056	2.81%	6	–			6	0	12
Totals		70,581,680	100.00%	300	70,370,255	100.00%	180	480	2 (vacant seats)	0
Turnout		69.28%			69.27%			–

Main article: Japanese general election, 2009

2007 House of Councillors election

Main article: Japanese House of Councillors election, 2007

 Summary of the 29 July 2007 Japanese House of Councillors election results

Parties		Prefectural constituency vote			National PR vote			Elected in 2007	Not up	Total seats	+/−
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Jiyū Minshutō	18,606,193.000	31.35	23	16,544,696	28.1	14	37	46	83	27
	New Komeito Party (NKP) Kōmeitō	3,534,672.000	5.96	2	7,762,324	13.2	7	9	11	20	3
	Ruling centre-right coalition	22,140,865.000	37.31	25	24,307,020	41.3	21	46	57	103	30
	Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Minshutō	24,006,817.693	40.45	40	23,256,242	39.5	20	60	49	109	28
	Social Democratic Party (SDP) Shakai Minshutō	1,352,018.000	2.28	0	2,637,716	4.5	2	2	3	5	1
	People's New Party (PNP) Kokumin Shintō	1,111,005.000	1.87	1	1,269,220	2.2	1	2	2	4	0
	New Party Nippon (NPN) Shintō Nippon	–			1,770,697	3.0	1	1	0	1	1
	Centre-left opposition	26,469,840.693	44.60	41	28,933,875	49.1	24	65	54	119	28
	Japanese Communist Party (JCP) Nihon Kyōsantō	5,164,572.184	8.70	0	4,407,937	7.5	3	3	4	7	2
	Others	477,182.472	0.80	0	1,264,841	2.1	0	0	0	0	0
	Independents	5,095,168.460	8.59	7	–			7	6	13	6
Total		59,347,628.809	100.00	73	58,913,700	100.00	48	121	121	242	2 (vacancies)
Turnout		58.64%			58.63%			–

Malapportionment

In the 1980s, apportionment of electoral districts still reflected the distribution of the population in the years following World War II, when only one-third of the people lived in urban areas and two thirds lived in rural areas. In the next forty-five years, the population became more than three-quarters urban, as people deserted rural communities to seek economic opportunities in Tokyo and other large cities. The lack of reapportionment led to a serious underrepresentation of urban voters. Urban districts in the House of Representatives were increased by five in 1964, bringing nineteen new representatives to the lower house; in 1975 six more urban districts were established, with a total of twenty new representatives allocated to them and to other urban districts. Yet great inequities remained between urban and rural voters.

In the early 1980s, as many as five times the votes were needed to elect a representative from an urban district compared with those needed for a rural district. Similar disparities existed in the prefectural constituencies of the House of Councillors. The Supreme Court had ruled on several occasions that the imbalance violated the constitutional principle of one person-one vote. The Supreme Court mandated the addition of eight representatives to urban districts and the removal of seven from rural districts in 1986. Several lower house districts' boundaries were redrawn. Yet the disparity was still as much as three urban votes to one rural vote.

After the 1986 change, the average number of persons per lower house representative was 236,424. However, the figure varied from 427,761 persons per representative in the fourth district of Kanagawa Prefecture, which contains the large city of Yokohama, to 142,932 persons in the third district of largely rural and mountainous Nagano Prefecture.

The 1993 reform government under Hosokawa Morihiro introduce a new electoral system whereby 200 members (reduced to 180 beginning with the 2000 election) are elected by proportional representation in multi-member districts or "blocs" while 300 are elected from single-candidate districts.

Still, according to the October 6, 2006 issue of the Japanese newspaper Daily Yomiuri, "the Supreme Court followed legal precedent in ruling Wednesday that the House of Councillors election in 2004 was held in a constitutionally sound way despite a 5.13-fold disparity in the weight of votes between the nation's most densely and most sparsely populated electoral districts".^{[citation needed]}

The 2009 general election was the first unconstitutional lower house election under the current electoral system introduced in 1994 (parallel voting and "small" FPTP single-member electoral districts/"Kakumander"). In March 2011, the Grand Bench (daihōtei) of the Supreme Court ruled that the maximum discrepancy of 2.30 in voting weight between the Kōchi 3 and Chiba 4 constituencies in the 2009 election was in violation of the constitutionally guaranteed equality of all voters. As in previous such rulings on unconstitutional elections (1972, 1980, 1983 and 1990 Representatives elections, 1992 Councillors election), the election is not invalidated, but the imbalance has to be corrected by the Diet through redistricting and/or reapportionment of seats between prefectures.

The following table is based on the 2009 Elections, using the 103,949,442 Registered Electors, the voter turn out at prefecture level and the detailed district votes. It involves a maximum to minimum ratio of 2.92, above from the aforementioned court ruling due to the variability of participation within prefectures between districts. Because voter turnout varies from district to district these figures are only approximately correct; full statistics on voter imbalance including the numbers of registered voters in every district, are regularly published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Estimated Population of Constituencies

District	Population
AICHI 1	305235
AICHI 2	330471
AICHI 3	335494
AICHI 4	306189
AICHI 5	346324
AICHI 6	386564
AICHI 7	404129
AICHI 8	389862
AICHI 9	392616
AICHI 10	385300
AICHI 11	375862
AICHI 12	443544
AICHI 13	390399
AICHI 14	261809
AICHI 15	325967
AKITA 1	262050
AKITA 2	321543
AKITA 3	397060
AOMORI 1	310339
AOMORI 2	218583
AOMORI 3	248275
AOMORI 4	291593
CHIBA 1	373994
CHIBA 2	400122
CHIBA 3	300181
CHIBA 4	449199
CHIBA 5	381031
CHIBA 6	325738
CHIBA 7	380587
CHIBA 8	385379
CHIBA 9	372993
CHIBA 10	340961
CHIBA 11	349380
CHIBA 12	375789
CHIBA 13	307660
EHIME 1	365854
EHIME 2	297521
EHIME 3	254040
EHIME 4	252121
FUKUI 1	210985
FUKUI 2	214862
FUKUI 3	212203
FUKUOKA 1	321275
FUKUOKA 2	384014
FUKUOKA 3	370385
FUKUOKA 4	317391
FUKUOKA 5	383802
FUKUOKA 6	360216
FUKUOKA 7	319870
FUKUOKA 8	365040
FUKUOKA 9	354147
FUKUOKA 10	352423
FUKUOKA 11	254317
FUKUSHIMA 1	461475
FUKUSHIMA 2	362868
FUKUSHIMA 3	320538
FUKUSHIMA 4	274561
FUKUSHIMA 5	339956
GIFU 1	332581
GIFU 2	324068
GIFU 3	427505
GIFU 4	398024
GIFU 5	314153
GUNMA 1	369957
GUNMA 2	301116
GUNMA 3	292612
GUNMA 4	289538
GUNMA 5	311378
HIROSHIMA 1	304219
HIROSHIMA 2	399582
HIROSHIMA 3	355707
HIROSHIMA 4	307291
HIROSHIMA 5	295780
HIROSHIMA 6	344143
HIROSHIMA 7	375673
HOKKAIDO 1	519946
HOKKAIDO 2	469661
HOKKAIDO 3	470952
HOKKAIDO 4	352310
HOKKAIDO 5	523544
HOKKAIDO 6	488877
HOKKAIDO 7	310504
HOKKAIDO 8	421148
HOKKAIDO 9	467794
HOKKAIDO 10	392718
HOKKAIDO 11	338387
HOKKAIDO 12	373835
HYOGO 1	344236
HYOGO 2	342223
HYOGO 3	308437
HYOGO 4	416672
HYOGO 5	390864
HYOGO 6	468520
HYOGO 7	452081
HYOGO 8	379175
HYOGO 9	340684
HYOGO 10	343450
HYOGO 11	358846
HYOGO 12	332086
IBARAKI 1	387608
IBARAKI 2	341514
IBARAKI 3	376628
IBARAKI 4	300820
IBARAKI 5	219486
IBARAKI 6	398464
IBARAKI 7	309589
ISHIKAWA 1	348168
ISHIKAWA 2	335120
ISHIKAWA 3	275320
IWATE 1	261913
IWATE 2	287570
IWATE 3	248280
IWATE 4	290191
KAGAWA 1	277166
KAGAWA 2	253863
KAGAWA 3	223745
KAGOSHIMA 1	297623
KAGOSHIMA 2	276428
KAGOSHIMA 3	256128
KAGOSHIMA 4	261333
KAGOSHIMA 5	241833
KANAGAWA 1	378436
KANAGAWA 2	382716
KANAGAWA 3	349603
KANAGAWA 4	315735
KANAGAWA 5	413191
KANAGAWA 6	343724
KANAGAWA 7	369643
KANAGAWA 8	352655
KANAGAWA 9	269462
KANAGAWA 10	417822
KANAGAWA 11	359629
KANAGAWA 12	324213
KANAGAWA 13	403199
KANAGAWA 14	383000
KANAGAWA 15	413205
KANAGAWA 16	383887
KANAGAWA 17	393595
KANAGAWA 18	303938
KOCHI 1	178960
KOCHI 2	186847
KOCHI 3	199103
KUMAMOTO 1	338261
KUMAMOTO 2	284765
KUMAMOTO 3	273092
KUMAMOTO 4	286428
KUMAMOTO 5	244871
KYOTO 1	347333
KYOTO 2	248377
KYOTO 3	315260
KYOTO 4	376253
KYOTO 5	267133
KYOTO 6	433227
MIE 1	317720
MIE 2	321336
MIE 3	346109
MIE 4	250611
MIE 5	302864
MIYAGI 1	353949
MIYAGI 2	370934
MIYAGI 3	272805
MIYAGI 4	312902
MIYAGI 5	211032
MIYAGI 6	218662
MIYAZAKI 1	320382
MIYAZAKI 2	299778
MIYAZAKI 3	276819
NAGANO 1	462003
NAGANO 2	416224
NAGANO 3	427730
NAGANO 4	276881
NAGANO 5	335380
NAGASAKI 1	349085
NAGASAKI 2	358680
NAGASAKI 3	239225
NAGASAKI 4	291458
NARA 1	297231
NARA 2	312722
NARA 3	305355
NARA 4	287479
NIIGATA 1	393880
NIIGATA 2	328348
NIIGATA 3	328267
NIIGATA 4	322680
NIIGATA 5	293894
NIIGATA 6	315558
OITA 1	335180
OITA 2	312117
OITA 3	330714
OKAYAMA 1	303445
OKAYAMA 2	257452
OKAYAMA 3	273178
OKAYAMA 4	312792
OKAYAMA 5	263088
OKINAWA 1	210911
OKINAWA 2	212547
OKINAWA 3	233703
OKINAWA 4	209096
OSAKA 1	335299
OSAKA 2	334069
OSAKA 3	357360
OSAKA 4	388528
OSAKA 5	378035
OSAKA 6	367429
OSAKA 7	344554
OSAKA 8	314093
OSAKA 9	430036
OSAKA 10	316453
OSAKA 11	381971
OSAKA 12	326300
OSAKA 13	361650
OSAKA 14	412277
OSAKA 15	385328
OSAKA 16	305057
OSAKA 17	313309
OSAKA 18	397162
OSAKA 19	289233
SAGA 1	250593
SAGA 2	241645
SAGA 3	232224
SAITAMA 1	374929
SAITAMA 2	392274
SAITAMA 3	388572
SAITAMA 4	311007
SAITAMA 5	308263
SAITAMA 6	385468
SAITAMA 7	361386
SAITAMA 8	325386
SAITAMA 9	371143
SAITAMA 10	192159
SAITAMA 11	337022
SAITAMA 12	338071
SAITAMA 13	329659
SAITAMA 14	356010
SAITAMA 15	322630
SHIGA 1	309285
SHIGA 2	256846
SHIGA 3	242541
SHIGA 4	284598
SHIMANE 1	304932
SHIMANE 2	350516
SHIZUOKA 1	360577
SHIZUOKA 2	399142
SHIZUOKA 3	378657
SHIZUOKA 4	319621
SHIZUOKA 5	440353
SHIZUOKA 6	419130
SHIZUOKA 7	350330
SHIZUOKA 8	356377
TOCHIGI 1	399225
TOCHIGI 2	270405
TOCHIGI 3	221163
TOCHIGI 4	402139
TOCHIGI 5	290238
TOKUSHIMA 1	198440
TOKUSHIMA 2	226532
TOKUSHIMA 3	224798
TOKYO 1	400920
TOKYO 2	366063
TOKYO 3	422791
TOKYO 4	359437
TOKYO 5	400759
TOKYO 6	416984
TOKYO 7	369400
TOKYO 8	398024
TOKYO 9	399697
TOKYO 10	301001
TOKYO 11	373544
TOKYO 12	354070
TOKYO 13	344171
TOKYO 14	311877
TOKYO 15	334248
TOKYO 16	365474
TOKYO 17	363395
TOKYO 18	370434
TOKYO 19	417345
TOKYO 20	358554
TOKYO 21	333123
TOKYO 22	412771
TOKYO 23	417059
TOKYO 24	405310
TOKYO 25	272460
TOTTORI 1	266943
TOTTORI 2	239179
TOYAMA 1	252194
TOYAMA 2	254880
TOYAMA 3	407798
WAKAYAMA 1	286967
WAKAYAMA 2	228247
WAKAYAMA 3	312362
YAMAGATA 1	332420
YAMAGATA 2	367208
YAMAGATA 3	332175
YAMAGUCHI 1	348754
YAMAGUCHI 2	318362
YAMAGUCHI 3	269477
YAMAGUCHI 4	264175
YAMANASHI 1	233469
YAMANASHI 2	273951
YAMANASHI 3	277180

Prefectural and local elections

Prefectural parliaments and governors, as well as mayors and assemblies in municipalities are elected for four-year terms. Many of these elections are held at the same time in the "unified local elections" (tōitsu chihō senkyo); in the last unified local election on April 6, 2007, 13 governors, 44 prefectural parliaments and mayors or assemblies in more than 1,000 cities, special wards, towns and villages were up for election.

• Japanese unified regional elections, 2011
• Tokyo gubernatorial election, 2003
• Tokyo gubernatorial election, 2007
• Tokyo prefectural election, 2001
• Tokyo prefectural election, 2005
• Tokyo prefectural election, 2009

Ballots, voting machines and early voting

Votes in national and most local elections are cast by writing the candidate's or party's name on a blank ballot paper. In elections for the House of Representatives voters fill in two ballots, one with the name of their preferred district candidate and one with their preferred party in the proportional representation block. For the House of Councillors, the district vote is similar (In SNTV multi-member districts, several candidates can be elected, but every voter has only one vote). But in the proportional vote for the House of Councillors votes are cast for a party list (to determine how many proportional seats a party receives) or a candidate (which additionally influences which candidates are elected from a party's list).

Ballots that cannot unambiguously be assigned to a candidate are not considered invalid, but are assigned to all potentially intended candidates proportionally to the unambiguous votes each candidate has received. These so-called "proportional fractional votes" (按分票, ambunhyō) are rounded to the third decimal. For example, if "Yamada A" and "Yamada B" both stood in an election, had received an equal number of unambiguous votes and a voter just wrote "Yamada" on the ballot paper, both Yamadas would get half a vote each; if there were already ten votes for "Yamada A" and five votes for "Yamada B", any vote for "Yamada" would count for Yamada A as two thirds of a vote, and for Yamada B as one third of a vote.

In 2002, passage of an electronic voting law allowed for the introduction of electronic voting machines in local elections. The first machine vote took place in Niimi, Okayama in June 2002. In 2003, a system for early voting (期日前投票制度, kijitsu-mae tōhyō seido) was introduced. In the Japanese general election, 2009 a record number of more than 10 million Japanese voted early.

See also

• Electoral calendar
• Election (general article)
• Political funding in Japan
• Japanese Diet

External links

• Adam Carr's Election Archive
• Daily Yomiuri Online: Inequality at the polls must be corrected
• (Japanese) MIC: Elections, political funds