THE GOVERNMENT OF MODERN JAPAN: JAPAN'S ELECTORAL SYSTEM New Electoral System |
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Gerald L. Curtis :: The new election system that Japan adopted in 1994 provides for a lower house of 500 members. Three hundred of them, 300 of the 500 lower house members, are elected in single-member districts, just like members of the House of Representatives in the United States, or just like members of the House of Commons in Great Britain. So that voters go to the polls and they cast a vote, they write the name of a candidate who's running in that district. And the candidate who gets the plurality — that is the most votes of all the candidates running in that district — is the only one elected to the Diet in that district. So there are 300 lower house members elected in 300 districts. But there are also 200 lower house members who are elected in proportional representation districts. And for purposes of this proportional representation part of the election, the country is divided into eleven regions. So a voter who goes to the polls when a lower house election is called in Japan has two ballots. On one he writes the name of a candidate in his single-member district, and the candidate who gets the most votes in that district is elected. And on the second ballot, he writes the name of a political party that is running in his regional "proportional representation" district. And then the seats are given to those parties on the basis of their share of the vote. So if the LDP [Liberal Democratic Party] wins 30 percent of the vote, it will get 30 percent of that district's proportional representation seats. So, this new system combines both the "first-past-the-post" single-member district system that we're familiar with in the United States or in Great Britain and the proportional representation system that's popular in continental western European countries. |
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