Japan's electoral system can get complicated even for your normal Japanese citizen, so let's talk about how Japan's electoral system works. But before we jump into Japan specifically, let's quickly review the different types of elections. All electoral systems can be categorized into the following three. Polarity or majoritarian system, proportional representation, and a mixed system. In the polarity system, only one candidate can win the election.
In the proportional representation, Multiple candidates can win an election. And, as you guessed, in the mixed system, there are certain districts that only allow one winner and other districts that allow multiple winners. Japan uses the mixed system, but this current system was adopted in 1994. Until 1994, Japan used the medium-sized election district system or Chūsen-kyūkusei.
Under this system, roughly 3-5 people were elected to parliament per district. This system is best known as the single non-transferable vote. or SNTV. Since adopting Universal Manhood Suffrage in 1925, Japan has been using this system. So, what is SNTV?
In your regular single-member district, you only have one winner. This system is known as First Past the Post or FPTP. SNTV is basically a multi-member FPTP. The top few candidates are the winners.
For example, if there is a district that only allows three winners, the following are elected as winners. Because votes are non-transferable, even if a party wins, say 80%, of the overall vote, what matters are the top three candidates rather than the top three parties with the most votes. Critics in the 1990s believed that Japan's SNTV system fostered factualism and dirty money politics. These resulted in the LDP's one-party dominance. Therefore, in 1993, all opposition parties other than the JCP formed a coalition to defeat the LDP and change the electoral system into the system that we have today.
Japan has a bicameral chamber, which means that Japan has two places where laws are discussed and made. The lower house is the house of representatives, and the upper house is the house of councillors. Politicians in the lower house serve one term of four years. You must be above 25 years old to run for the lower house.
There are elections every four years or when the prime minister dissolves the parliament. Politicians in the upper house serve one term of six years. You must be over 30 years old to run for the upper house.
The upper house has elections every 3 years. This is because half of the politicians were elected 3 years prior while half will be elected in the election. This allows the upper house to have both experienced and newly elected politicians in the same chamber.
There are a total of 465 seats in the House of Representatives and 248 seats in the House of Councillors. What makes Japan's elections unique is the fact that every voter gets 2 votes per house. In the lower house, Voters vote for individual candidates in the district, and they also vote for a party in the regional bloc. Let's start off with the districts. Japan is divided into 289 different voting blocs, and all 289 blocs are single-member districts, meaning that they use FPTP.
Prefectures with more people have more districts, and prefectures with less people have less districts. For example, Tokyo has 30 districts, while Kyoto has 6 districts. This gets revised here and there. Just recently, 10 seats were reallocated from rural prefectures to the kanto prefectures.
The remaining 176 individuals are decided with proportional representation. Japan is divided into different 11 regional blocks. Each block ranges from 10 to 30 people that can get elected.
Residents of the different regional blocks get to vote for a political party, and the seats are passed out to the parties based on proportion. The lower house uses a closed-list proportional representation, which means each political party ranks the preferred candidates. If a party wins, say, four seats, the top four candidates on their list are elected into office. One unique thing about Japan's lower house is the ability to revive.
Even if a candidate loses his or her district in one of the 289 single-member districts, a candidate can revive if he or she is on a closed list. This is known as 比例復活, which means proportional election revival. The upper house is similar to the lower house.
Voters get two votes. Because half of the members are voted every three years, 124 politicians are elected into office every three years. Voters get to vote for their local candidate in a national party at the national level. Now, because there are two votes, the upper house candidates have two areas they can run for office.
Out of the 248 seats, 148 seats are decided at the prefectural level. Instead of dividing Japan into 289 voting districts as seen in the lower house, the upper house conducts an SNTV at the prefecture level. The number of candidates vary by size of prefecture. Unfortunately, not all prefectures get their candidates because some are just too small.
Tottori and Shimane and Tokushima and Kochi are merged for this election. The remaining 100 seats are selected at the national level. While the lower house divides Japan into 11 different regional blocs, the upper house just has a nationwide election. Unlike the lower house, the upper house uses the open-list proportional representation.
In an open-list system, voters get to choose who and which party they would like to vote for. For example, They can vote for candidate C of this party as seen in the screen. If the voter doesn't have any individual in mind, that's fine. They can just vote for the party. Unlike the closed list, the open list grants voters more power to decide who gets to get elected.
However, this system was modified in 2018. While Japan still uses the open list system, the country introduced a special priority section. Basically, each party can choose candidates to be part of the special priority portion of their open list. Candidates with the most seats are only considered after candidates in the special priority portion are granted a seat.
For example, if a party wins 4 seats, these two in the special priority will get a seat, and then the top two candidates will win the seat. Also, unlike the lower house, upper house candidates may not run at both the prefectural and national level. They have to choose one location.
There is no hide fukkatsu in the upper house. In both the lower and upper house, the two votes do not affect one another. Japan's mixed system is known as the mixed-member majoritarian or parallel voting. If the two votes affect the distribution of seats, that is known as a mixed member proportional representation.
Countries like New Zealand and Germany uses MMP. As you can tell, Japan's electoral system is quite complicated, but this has been working for the past 30 years. This current system was introduced in 1994 in order to change Japanese politics for the better. But there are definitely some fault lines that have resulted from this system, so check out this video that reveals which party people actually support in Japan.
And if you want to learn more about current Japanese political parties, you should check out this other video.