Photo/Illutration Voters visit a polling station in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward on Oct. 31, 2021, for the Lower House election. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Fifty-three percent of voters view the single-seat constituency system that was first implemented in 1996 as “good,” a nationwide survey by The Asahi Shimbun showed.

Thirty-seven percent of respondents said the system, in which one candidate is elected from each electoral district, is “not good.”

Political reform legislation was enacted in 1994 to introduce a system that combines single-seat constituencies with proportional representation for the Lower House election.

Until the 1993 Lower House election, a multiple-seat constituency system was used, in which roughly three to five candidates were elected from each electoral district.

That system was criticized as making it difficult for power to change hands because the Liberal Democratic Party was pretty much the only party large enough to field multiple candidates in a single constituency. The system generated factional feuds within the LDP and led to a plutocracy.

The single-seat constituency system was considered more likely to bring about a change of government because it encouraged more party-centered and policy-oriented elections.

Older respondents in the survey tend to have a more negative view of a single-seat constituency system.

Around 60 percent of those in their 30s and younger said the single-seat constituency system is “good,” but the rate was 48 percent among those 70 and older.

And among respondents in those older age brackets, 42 percent said the system is “not good.”

By party, 65 percent of LDP supporters said the system is “good.” Among supporters of the LDP’s junior coalition partner, Komeito, 46 percent favored the system, compared with 41 percent who said it is “not good.”

Among supporters of opposition parties, 54 percent of those who back Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) gave positive marks to the single-seat constituency system.

Fifty-one percent of supporters of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan chose “not good.”

Among unaffiliated voters, 46 percent favored the system and 40 percent did not.

One criticism against the current electoral system is that it works to the advantage of major parties and can lead to “wasted votes.”

Candidates who lose in single-seat constituencies can still gain Diet seats through proportional representation, depending on the ratio of votes they received compared to the successful candidates.

That could work against the will of the voters in those single-seat constituencies who do not want those candidates in the Diet.

Only 22 percent of respondents favored this dual system, compared with 72 percent who answered it was “not good.”

Older respondents are more critical of the system, with 80 percent of those 60 and older saying it is “not good.” Among those in their 30s and younger, 50 to 60 percent of them said it is “not good.”

The rates were similar among supporters of different parties.

The survey was conducted from late February to mid-April on 3,000 voters nationwide by mail. Valid responses from 1,967, or 66 percent, were received.

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