Editing Elections in Japan (section)

==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 of Japan|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.<ref>Batto, NF., Huang, C., Tan, AC. and Cox, G. (Ed.) (2016) Batto, NF., Huang, C., Tan, AC. and Cox, G. (Ed.) (2016) ''Mixed-Member Electoral Systems in Constitutional Context: Taiwan, Japan and Beyond''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.</ref>

Still, according to the 6 October 2006 issue of the Japanese newspaper ''[[Yomiuri Shimbun|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|date=November 2010}}

The 2009 general House of Representatives 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 [[Kochi 3rd district|Kōchi 3]] and [[Chiba 4th district|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.<ref>Jiji Tsūshin, 23 March 2011: [http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=201103/2011032300649 09年衆院選は違憲状態=1人別枠方式「平等に反する」－廃止要請・最高裁大法廷]{{dead link|date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In 2016, a panel of experts proposed to introduce the [John Quincy] [[Highest averages method#Adams' method|Adams apportionment method]] (method of smallest divisors) for apportioning House of Representatives seats to prefectures. The reform is planned to be implemented after the 2020 census figures are available and not expected to take effect before 2022.<ref>[[Nihon Keizai Shimbun|nikkei.com]], 15 March 2017: [http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZZO97932170S6A300C1000000/ 衆院定数10減決まる 選挙制度改革まとめ]</ref> In the meantime, another redistricting and apportionment passed in 2017 is designed to keep the maximum malapportionment ratio in the House of Representatives below 2. In the FPTP tier, it changes 97 districts and cuts six without adding any; in the proportional tier, four "blocks" lose a seat each; the total number of seats in the lower house is cut to 465, 289 majoritarian seats and 176 proportional seats.<ref>Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications: [http://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/news/senkyo/shu_kuwari/shu_kuwari_3.html 衆議院小選挙区の区割りの改定等について] ("On the changes to House of Representatives single-member districts" [but covers the changes to proportional districts, too]) {{in lang|ja}}</ref>

The malapportionment in the 2010<ref>''[[Asahi Shimbun]]'', Asia & Japan Watch, 18 October 2012: [http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201210180077 Japan's 2 Diet chambers both ruled all but 'unconstitutional'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022021914/http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201210180077 |date=22 October 2012 }}</ref> and 2013<ref>The Japan Times, 26 November 2014: [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/11/26/national/crime-legal/supreme-court-assails-vote-disparity-2013-election-doesnt-nullify-results/ Supreme Court assails vote disparity in 2013 election but doesn't nullify results]</ref> regular House of Councillors elections was ruled unconstitutional (or "in an unconstitutional state") by the Supreme Court, and has been reduced by a 2015 reapportionment below 3 (at least in government statistics from census data which is regular and standardized but lags behind resident registration statistics and the actual number of eligible voters; using the latter, the maximum malapportionment in the 2016 election remained slightly above 3<ref>Mainichi Shimbun, 12 July 2016: [https://mainichi.jp/senkyo/articles/20160712/ddm/041/010/233000c 2016参院選:「1票の格差」一斉提訴 最大3．08倍、無効訴え 14高裁・支部]{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref>Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 27 December 2019: [http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000456489.pdf Voter statistics as of September 2, 2016] [covers districts of both houses of the National Diet], p.16 {{in lang|ja}}</ref>).

The following table lists the 10 electoral districts with the highest and lowest number of registered voters per member elected for each chamber of the National Diet according to the voter statistics as of September 2016 released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications – it takes into account the lowering of the voting age and the district reforms to both houses of the Diet in effect since the 2014 and 2016 elections, but not the 2017 redistricting/reapportionment effective from the next House of Representatives election.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Electoral districts with the highest and lowest voting weight for the National Diet as of 2016<ref>Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 27 December 2016: [http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000456489.pdf Voter statistics as of September 2, 2016], p. 8 {{in lang|ja}}</ref>
|-
! colspan="5" | [[House of Representatives (Japan)|House of Representatives]]
! colspan="5" | [[House of Councillors (Japan)|House of Councillors]]
|-
!
! colspan="2" | Lowest vote weight
! colspan="2" | Highest vote weight
! colspan="2" | Lowest vote weight
! colspan="2" | Highest vote weight
!
|-
! #
! District !! Registered voters
! District !! Registered voters
! District !! Registered voters<br />per member elected
! District !! Registered voters<br />per member elected
! #
|-
| 1
| [[Tokyo 1st district|Tokyo 1]] || align="right" | 514,974
| [[Fukushima 4th district|Fukushima 4]] || align="right" | 233,491
| [[Saitama at-large district|Saitama]] || align="right" | 1,015,543
| [[Fukui at-large district|Fukui]] || align="right" | 328,772
| 1
|-
| 2
| [[Hokkaidō 1st district|Hokkaidō 1]] || align="right" | 505,510
| [[Miyagi 5th district|Miyagi 5]] || align="right" | 234,373
| [[Niigata at-large district|Niigata]] || align="right" | 978,686
| [[Saga at-large district|Saga]] || align="right" | 346,727
| 2
|-
| 3
| [[Tokyo 3rd district|Tokyo 3]] || align="right" | 504,929
| [[Kagoshima 5th district|Kagoshima 5]] || align="right" | 240,056
| [[Miyagi At-large district|Miyagi]] || align="right" | 975,466
| [[Yamanashi at-large district|Yamanashi]] || align="right" | 353,402
| 3
|-
| 4
| [[Tokyo 5th district|Tokyo 5]] || align="right" | 498,903
| [[Tottori 1st district|Tottori 1]] || align="right" | 240,874
| [[Kanagawa at-large district|Kanagawa]] || align="right" | 951,735
| [[Kagawa at-large district|Kagawa]] || align="right" | 417,082
| 4
|-
| 5
| [[Hyōgo 6th district|Hyōgo 6]] || align="right" | 492,173
| [[Nagasaki 3rd district|Nagasaki 3]] || align="right" | 242,165
| [[Tokyo at-large district|Tokyo]] || align="right" | 937,470
| [[Wakayama at-large district|Wakayama]] || align="right" | 419,011
| 5
|-
| 6
| [[Tokyo 6th district|Tokyo 6]] || align="right" | 490,674
| [[Tottori 2nd district|Tottori 2]] || align="right" | 242,194
| [[Osaka at-large district|Osaka]] || align="right" | 915,000
| [[Akita at-large district|Akita]] || align="right" | 448,236
| 6
|-
| 7
| [[Tokyo 19th district|Tokyo 19]] || align="right" | 488,494
| [[Nagasaki 4th district|Nagasaki 4]] || align="right" | 242,303
| [[Nagano at-large district|Nagano]] || align="right" | 885,638
| [[Toyama at-large district|Toyama]] || align="right" | 452,822
| 7
|-
| 8
| [[Tokyo 22nd district|Tokyo 22]] || align="right" | 486,965
| [[Aomori 3rd district|Aomori 3]] || align="right" | 244,007
| [[Chiba At-large district|Chiba]] || align="right" | 871,110
| [[Miyazaki at-large district|Miyazaki]] || align="right" | 466,829
| 8
|-
| 9
| [[Saitama 3rd district|Saitama 3]] || align="right" | 483,014
| [[Mie 4th district|Mie 4]] || align="right" | 244,825
| [[Gifu at-large district|Gifu]] || align="right" | 850,190
| [[Yamagata at-large district|Yamagata]] || align="right" | 475,419
| 9
|-
| 10
| [[Tokyo 23rd district|Tokyo 23]] || align="right" | 481,206
| [[Iwate 3rd district|Iwate 3]] || align="right" | 246,272
| [[Tochigi at-large district|Tochigi]] || align="right" | 827,368
| [[Ishikawa at-large district|Ishikawa]] || align="right" | 481,027
| 10
|}