Elections in 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 deposits for candidacy are 3 million yen (30 thousand dollars) for single-seat constituency and 6 million yen (60 thousand dollars) for proportional representation.

Contents

[edit] 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]

[edit] Latest results

[edit] 2009 General election

e • d Summary of the 30 August 2009 Japanese House of Representatives election results[1][2][3][4]
Alliances and parties Local seats +/− Block seats +/− Votes[5]  % PR block votes  % +/− Total seats +/−
(dissolution)		 +/-
   Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Minshutō – 民主党 221 +169 87 +26 33,475,334 47.43% 29,844,799 42.41% +11.4 308 +193 +195
Social Democratic Party (SDP) Shamintō – 社民党 3 +2 4 −2 1,376,739 1.95% 3,006,160 4.27% −1.2 7 ±0 ±0
People's New Party (PNP) Kokuminshintō – 国民新党 3 +1 0 −2 730,570 1.04% 1,219,767 1.73% ±0.0 3 −1 −1
New Party Nippon Shintō Nippon – 新党日本 1 ±0 0 ±0 220,223 0.31% 528,171 0,75% 1 +1 ±0
New Party Daichi Shintō Daichi – 新党大地 0 ±0 1 ±0 included in others 433,122 0.62% 1 ±0 ±0
DPJ–SDP–PNP Coalition 228 +172 92 +22 35,802,866 50.73% 35,032,019 48.4% +10.2 320 +193 +194
   Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Jimintō – 自民党 64 −155 55 −22 27,301,982 38.68% 18,810,217 26.73% −11.45 119 -181 −177
New Komeito Party (NKP) Kōmeitō – 公明党 0 −8 21 −2 782,984 1.11% 8,054,007 11.45% −1.80 21 -10 −10
Japan Renaissance Party Kaikaku Club – 改革クラブ 0 — 0 — 36,650 0.05% 58,141 0.08% — 0 −1 —
LDP–NKP Coalition 64 −163 76 −24 28,121,613 39.84% 26,922,365 38.2% −13.3 140 −192 −187
   Japanese Communist Party (JCP) Kyōsantō – 共産党 0 ±0 9 ±0 2,978,354 4.22% 4,943.886 7.03% −0.22 9 ±0 ±0
Your Party (YP) Minna no Tō – みんなの党 2 — 3 — 615,244 0.87% 3,005,199 4.27% — 5 +1 +5
Others 0 ±0 0 ±0 1,077,543 1.53% 466.786[6] 0.66% 0 ±0 ±0
Independents[7] 6 -12 — — 1,986,055 2.81% — — — 6 ±0 -12
Total (turnout 69.28%; PR block turnout 69.27%) 300 — 180 — 70,581,679 100.0% 70,370,255 100.0% — 480 +2 —
Main article: Japanese general election, 2009

[edit] 2007 House of Councillors election

Main article: Japanese House of Councillors election, 2007
e • d Summary of the 29 July 2007 Japanese House of Councillors election results[8]
Parties Prefectural votes[9]  % Proportional votes  % Prefectural seats 2007 Proportional seats 2007 +/–[10] Elected in 2007 Not up Total seats
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Minshutō 24,006,817.693 40.45 23,256,242 39.5 40 20 +28 60 49 109
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Jiyū Minshutō 18,606,193.000 31.35 16,544,696 28.1 23 14 –27 37 46 83
New Komeito Party (NKP) Shin Kōmeitō 3,534,672.000 5.96 7,762,324 13.2 2 7 –3 9 11 20
Japanese Communist Party (JCP) Nihon Kyōsantō 5,164,572.184 8.70 4,407,937 7.5 0 3 –2 3 4 7
Social Democratic Party (SDP) Shakai Minshutō 1,352,018.000 2.28 2,637,716 4.5 0 2 –1 2 3 5
People's New Party (PNP) Kokumin Shintō 1,111,005.000 1.87 1,269,220 2.2 1 1 0 2 2 4
New Party Nippon (NPN) Shintō Nippon - - 1,770,697 3.0 0 1 +1 1 0 1
Others 477,182.472 0.80 1,264,841 2.1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Independents 5,095,168.460 8.59 - - 7 0 +6 7 6 13
Total 59,347,628.809 100.00 58,913,700.007 100.00 73 48 +2
(vacancies)		 121 121 242

[edit] 2005 General election

e • d Summary of the 11 September 2005 Japanese House of Representatives election results[11]
Alliances and parties Local seats +/- Block seats +/- Votes[12]  % Block votes  % +/- Total seats +/- +/−
(pre-election)
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Jiyū Minshutō 219 +51 77 +8 32,518,389 47.8% 25,887,798 38.2% +3.3 296 +60 +84
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) Minshutō 52 -53 61 -11 24,804,786 36.4% 21,036,425 31.0% -6.4 113 -64 -64
New Komeito Party (NKP) Kōmeitō 8 -1 23 -2 981,105 1.4% 8,987,620 13.3% -1.5 31 -3 -3
Japanese Communist Party (JCP) Nihon Kyōsantō 0 9 4,937,375 7.3% 4,919,187 7.3% -0.4 9 ±0 ±0
Social Democratic Party (SDP) Shakai Minshutō 1 0 6 +1 996,007 1.5% 3,719,522 5.5% +0.3 7 +1 +2
People's New Party (PNP) Kokumin Shintō 2 2 432,679 0.5% 1,183,073 1.7% 4 +4 ±0
New Party Nippon (NPN) Shintō Nippon 0 1 137,172 0.2% 1,643,506 2.4% 1 +1 -2
New Party Daichi (NPD) Shintō Daichi 0 1 16,698 0.0% 433,938 0.6% 1 +1 +1
Independents 18 +1 - 3,240,521 4.8% - - 18 +1 -14
Others 0 - 1,557 0.0 % - - 0 ±0 ±0
Total (turnout 67.51%, PR blocks: 67.46%, overseas: 25.78%) 300 180 68,066,291 100.0 67,811,069 100.0 480 +4
Main article: Japan general election, 2005

[edit] Pre-reform electoral districts

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 greatest success of the 1993 reform government under Hosokawa Morihiro was a change in the 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".

[edit] 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 "unifed 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.[13]

[edit] 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 an 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 (influences how many proportional seats a party receives) or a candidate (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 proportionally assigned to all potentially intended candidates. These so-called "proportional fractional votes" (按分票, ambunhyō) are rounded to the third decimal.[14]

In 2002, passage of an electronic voting law[15] allowed for the introduction of electronic voting machines in local elections.[16] The first machine vote took place in Niimi, Okayama in June 2002.[17] In 2003, a system for early voting (期日前投票制度, kijitsu-mae tōhyō seido) was introduced.[18] In the Japanese general election, 2009 a record number of more than 10 million Japanese voted early.[19]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ General election results final breakdown. Kyodo News. August 31, 2009.
  2. ^ Psephos - Adam Carr. August 31, 2009.
  3. ^ Nihon Keizai Shimbun. August 31, 2009.
  4. ^ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Home Office, Election Department (総務省自治行政局選挙部): Results of the 45th House of Representatives election, complete edition (45衆結果調全体版)
  5. ^ fractional votes omitted
  6. ^ Happiness Realization Party (kōfuku-jitsugen-tō) 459,387, Essential Party (shintō honshitsu) 7,399
  7. ^ includes 3 members of the Hiranuma Group; 2 independents joined the DPJ parliamentary group immediately after the election
  8. ^ http://www3.nhk.or.jp/senkyo/html
  9. ^ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: Final results of the 21st ordinary election for the House of Councillors, p. 20
  10. ^ Asahi Shimbun election special
  11. ^ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Home Office, Election Department (総務省自治行政局選挙部): Results of the 44th House of Representatives election
  12. ^ decimals from fractional votes (ambunhyō) omitted
  13. ^ (Japanese) MIC: 平成１９年統一地方選挙執行予定団体に関する調
  14. ^ "ザ･選挙大事典>按分" (in Japanese). ザ・選挙. JANJAN (Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures). http://www.senkyo.janjan.jp/senkyo_dictionary/0903/0903110214/1.php. Retrieved June 7th, 2009. 
  15. ^ 地方公共団体の議会の議員及び長の選挙に係る電磁的記録式投票機を用いて行う投票方法等の特例に関する法律
  16. ^ MIC: 電磁的記録式投票制度について
  17. ^ Kōbe Shimbun, June 28, 2002: 全国初の電子投票ルポ　岡山・新見市
  18. ^ MIC: 期日前投票制度
  19. ^ The Japan Times, August 30, 2009: Record-high 10.9 million voters cast early ballots

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