Japan's Diet Enacts Bill To Redraw Lower House Electoral Districts
Japan's Diet has enacted a bill to redraw the electoral districts of the Lower House in an effort to reflect voters' views in a fairer way.
The draft amendment to the public offices election law has passed through the Diet after it was approved at the Upper Houser plenary session on Friday with a majority in favor.
Under the revised law, the demarcations of a record 140 single-seat constituencies will be changed.
A total of 10 more constituencies will be added in five prefectures, including Tokyo and Kanagawa. On the other hand, 10 other prefectures, such as Miyagi, Niigata and Hiroshima, will each lose one constituency.
Calculations based on the 2020 national census results showed that the new demarcation will narrow disparity in the value of one vote between the most and least populated districts from 2.096 times to 1.999 times.
The revised law will also change the number of seats allotted to the Lower House's five proportional representation blocks. Two regional blocks will have a total of three more seats, with two for Tokyo and one for the southern Kanto region, while three other blocks, including the Tohoku region in the northeast, will each lose one seat.
The revised law will be implemented as early as late December. It will be applied to Lower House elections publicly announced thereafter.