Photo/Illutration Lawyers who sued over the vote value disparity in the 2022 Upper House election walk toward the Supreme Court ahead of its ruling on Oct. 18. (Takashi Endo)

The Supreme Court on Oct. 18 ruled that the Upper House election of July last year was constitutional despite some people’s votes having three times greater weight than others.

The top court’s Grand Bench rejected appeals from two groups of lawyers who filed 16 lawsuits with high courts around the country.

On election day in 2022, the most densely populated Kanagawa prefectural district had 3.03 times the number of voters per elected representative than the least populated Fukui prefectural district.

The value of a vote cast in Kanagawa Prefecture was worth only 0.33 of a vote cast in Fukui Prefecture.

The plaintiffs had argued that this vote value disparity violates the Constitution, which calls for equality in the value of a vote. They demanded that the outcome be nullified.

Of the 16 high court rulings, one said the election was unconstitutional, eight said it was held in a “state of unconstitutionality” (one step away from being unconstitutional), and the remaining seven said it was constitutional.

The Oct. 18 decision by the Supreme Court was a majority opinion by 11 of its 15 justices.

Two justices said the election was held in a “state of unconstitutionality,” and another said the election was unconstitutional and should be nullified.

The other justice said the election was constitutional but on different grounds from the majority opinion.

The Grand Bench previously ruled that the Upper House election in 2019 was constitutional despite a vote value disparity of 3.00.

But it pointed out that a fundamental review of the election system, which was included in a 2015 revision to the Public Offices Election Law, had made little progress.

The maximum vote value disparity in an Upper House election reached 5.00 in 2010. It shrank to 3.08 in 2016 through a revision to the Public Offices Election Law the previous year, which merged four less-populated prefectural electoral districts into two.

A supplementary provision to the revision said lawmakers will consider a fundamental review of the election system toward the 2019 election and “make sure to achieve a conclusion” to further narrow the disparity.

However, only two seats were added to the Saitama prefectural electoral district, and the vote value disparity slightly improved to 3.00 in 2019.

With no adjustments made since then, the disparity edged up to 3.03 in 2022.

At a Supreme Court hearing in September, the plaintiffs said the Diet broke its promise to voters to “achieve a conclusion” in its fundamental review of the electoral system.

The lawyers said the top court should rule the 2022 election was held in a state of unconstitutionality, if not outright unconstitutional.

Election administration commissions, the defendants in the lawsuits, said the election was constitutional.

They said the Diet is continuing discussions on reducing the vote value disparity and remains open to making reforms.

In the 2015 revision to the Public Offices Election Law, Tottori and Shimane prefectures and Tokushima and Kochi prefectures were merged into one electoral district, respectively.

The commissions said there is strong opposition to such mergers due to declines in voter turnout and other negative effects. But they noted that the Diet has maintained the system that includes the merged electoral districts.

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