Japan had the election of the Upper House of the National Diet on 10th July. As the Australian federal election was held on 2nd July, I thought it would be great to introduce the Japanese national election system.
The National Diet of Japan has two houses, Lower House (House of Representatives, Shugiin) and Upper House (House of Councillors, Sangiin). The government is determined by who has a majority of the Lower House seats, similar to the Australian federal government system. Both terms are respectively four years and six years, but the Lower House is often dissolved by the government in two or three years.
The Lower House has 480 members whose 300 members are elected from single-seat districts under the single member plurality system and 180 members are elected from 11 separate electoral blocs under the proportional representation system. The Upper House has 242 members of which 146 are from the 45 prefectural electorates (Japan has 47 prefectures but four prefectures constitute two electorates because of small populations.) and 96 are from one whole national bloc under the proportional representation system. Half of the Upper House members are elected every three years.
Even in the national elections, Japanese local governments are in charge of the electoral roll management such as setting up the voting centres, promoting citizens to vote and counting the votes. Although almost all election days are Sundays, many local government officers work during the national elections from early morning to very late at night.
A large part of the management of the national election actually consists of statutory duties entrusted to local governments by the central government as they are closer to citizens and thus have the capacity to conduct electoral procedures effectively.
Katsunori Kamibo
Director