Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has dissolved the House of Representatives, and the election campaign kicked off on Tuesday. Voting and ballot counting will take place on Oct. 27.
Seats in House of Representatives elections can be obtained through a combination of two different systems. Of the Diet’s 465 seats, 289 are made up of single-seat constituencies and the remaining 176 are allocated according to the percentage of votes cast for each political party, a system known as proportional representation.
At a polling station, a voter is given two ballots to fill in. On one, they choose one of the candidates standing for the single-seat constituency in which they live. On the other, they select a political party for the proportional representation section.
The system was introduced in the 1996 lower house election, and this current election marks its tenth use.
In a single-seat constituency race, the candidate who receives the most votes wins and becomes the sole representative of that district.
Under proportional representation system, each party’s share of seats is determined by their overall share of votes. The seats obtained through this system are given to top candidates from each party who have not won in a single-seat constituency race.
Candidates from national political parties can generally run in both sections. Therefore, even if a candidate loses their single-seat constituency race, they can still become a member of Parliament if elected through proportional representation.
One aim behind this system is to reflect public will by allowing candidates who lost their single-seat races to still have an opportunity to serve in Parliament. However, there is criticism against this practice as it allows defeated candidates to be elected again.