Neat article on Japan's problems with it's elections. It seems what came out according to Wikipedia is: (If someone knows a more up-to-date article that isn't behind a hard paywall, you should...
Neat article on Japan's problems with it's elections. It seems what came out according to Wikipedia is:
In 2016, a panel of experts proposed to introduce the [John Quincy] Adams apportionment method (method of smallest divisors) for apportioning House of Representatives seats to prefectures. The reform is planned to be implemented after the 2020 census figures are available and not expected to take effect before 2022.[18] In the meantime, another redistricting and apportionment passed in 2017 is designed to keep the maximum malapportionment ratio in the House of Representatives below 2.
(If someone knows a more up-to-date article that isn't behind a hard paywall, you should probably post it as a reply.)
The problem with Japan’s electoral system as it currently exists is that some districts have many more elected representatives per voter than other districts. Vote-value disparities in some instances are 2-to-1 or higher, inviting a potential Supreme Court challenge to the validity of the next Lower House election results.
Separately, before the November arrangement, Noda had also reached an accord of sorts with Sadakazu Tanigaki, Abe’s predecessor as president of the LDP. If Tanigaki would help the DPJ raise the consumption tax, Noda agreed to dissolve the Lower House in the near future. [...] The unpopular consumption tax went into effect but the number of Diet members was never cut as drastically as hoped for, which could cause problems for Abe and the LDP.
These concerns have led Abe to ask for the electoral reform plan–originally slated to go into effect after 2020–to be reworked to go into effect sooner.
While the LDP wants to keep the current method of allocating one seat to every prefecture and distributing the remaining seats according to prefectures’ population, Komeito (LDP’s junior coalition partner) and the DPJ want to use the Adams’ method to allocate seats. Using the Adams’ method would actually address vote-value disparity, which keeping the current system would not.
Neat article on Japan's problems with it's elections. It seems what came out according to Wikipedia is:
(If someone knows a more up-to-date article that isn't behind a hard paywall, you should probably post it as a reply.)
From the article: