April is the season of local government elections. Last April, 10 governor and 41 prefectural assembly elections were held within 47 prefectures. Within 1,741 municipalities, 227 mayor and 706 municipal assembly elections were also held. The current Japanese local government system was introduced in 1947, and governors, mayors and respective assembly members began to be elected under the new system. Both prefectural and municipal terms are for four years, so elections are held every four years but simultaneous elections have gradually decreased due to resignations of some governors and mayors, dissolutions of assemblies and amalgamations of municipalities.
Almost all election days are Sundays because most workers have this day off. Holding elections on Sundays is also feasible in Japan as there is minimal religious influence, meaning most voters would be free to participate.
Polling stations are usually open from 7 am to 8 pm. Every voter has the option to vote before the election day making the process flexible whilst encouraging a higher turnout. However, the voting percentage remains between 30 to 70 percent.
Governors and mayors are directly elected and of course only one person is elected in each local government. This differs from the respective prefectural and municipal members’ election where each tier sets a number of seats which must be filled. In most cases, municipal assembly members are elected from whole areas (all districts within a municipality combined), so some constituencies might even reach 30 or 40 seats. However, every voter has only one vote, so some candidates who obtain only 2% of votes can still win a seat as there is a seat limit to be reached.
Voters write down a candidate’s name on a voting slip instead of choosing from a list. This means some slips risk being difficult to read during the counting of votes. Regardless, local government officers must persevere and count the votes on election day night and announce the results of the ballot counting as soon as possible.
Katsunori Kamibo
Director