Photo/Illutration The Diet building (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Can the winners of the Oct. 27 Lower House election truly be called “the people’s elected representatives,” given that the ratio of the disparity in the value of votes was as large as 1 to 2.06 in one constituency?

Lawsuits have been instituted at appellate courts and their local branches around Japan, demanding that the election results be nullified because they are in violation of the constitutional guarantee of equality for all the people.

The preamble to the Constitution starts with these words: “We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet ...”

If a flaw in the electoral system causes significant differences in the number of people being represented by their elected officials, the discrepancies that will eventually arise between the Diet’s majority decisions and the people’s wishes cannot be ignored.

This should be a problem for every elected lawmaker to take seriously as it concerns the legitimacy of their own status.

As of Oct. 14, the weight of one vote in the Hokkaido No. 3 district--which is part of Sapporo and has the highest number of voters in Japan--was less than a half of that in the Tottori No. 1 district, which consists of Tottori city and some other areas and has the lowest number of voters.

The disparity ratio for the Lower House was 1 to 2.08 in 2021, and 1 to 1.98 in 2017.

What makes the disparity in the Oct. 27 election even more serious is that this was the first time the Adams Method was used to redraw the electoral map in a record 140 districts. The Adams Method makes it easy to determine the number of seats each district should have, based on population.

In 2011, the traditional “one person quota system,” under which every prefecture was automatically assigned one seat regardless of the number of its voters, was determined by the Supreme Court to be the cause of the vote disparity. Since then, it took more than a decade to reform the electoral system, but the result has proven to be far from satisfactory.

The electoral map for the Oct. 27 election was based on the revised Public Offices Election Law, which took effect in November 2022 in line with recommendations made in June that year by the council on the zoning of electoral districts for Lower House members.

The council at the time explained that, based on 2020 population statistics, the vote disparity rate would shrink to 1 to 1.999. But with the continuing flow of people to urban areas, it appears the council did nothing to stop the ratio from reaching 1 to 2.

The law for rezoning electoral districts based on the council being set up stipulates that the weight of one vote in one district should never be double that in another district, but the Diet has failed to abide even by the law it drew up.

Given the constitutional provision for the equality of the value of votes, it certainly does not mean that any disparity is acceptable if it remains less than 1 to 2.

And since it has been pointed out that the Adams Method is not fully equipped to deal with disadvantages faced by urban voters, the Diet definitely needs to start doing something to fundamentally overhaul the system and aim for the “one vote for each person” goal.

This time, the courts must examine the new lawsuits more vigorously. In similar cases concerning two past Lower House elections, the Supreme Court ruled the situation “constitutional” on the grounds that the Diet at the time had decided to adopt the Adams Method.

As a result, that verdict became the reason the Diet stopped trying further to rectify the situation.

Lawmakers tend to be reluctant to change the system by which they were elected, which can result in their interests being at odds with those of the people whom they represent.

The judiciary’s oversight function over the legislature is now being tested more severely than ever.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 30