General Elections

General Elections choose all 465 members of Japan's House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament. It is the constitutional election of the lower house, held under the Public Offices Election Act.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, or MIC, runs and reports the vote, not the Bank of Japan. Of 465 seats, 289 come from single-seat districts, with 1 winner per district, and 176 come from proportional representation, or PR, across 11 regional blocks. Only Japanese nationals aged 18 or older vote, all valid ballots are counted, and it measures seats, not economic sentiment or forecasts.

An election follows the end of the 4-year term or a dissolution of the house, with both ballots voted on the same day. Polls run from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time. Early voting runs from the day after proclamation to the day before the election, 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Each voter casts 3 ballots: one single-seat name, one PR party, and one judges' review.

MIC then publishes a two-part report, one part for the Diet vote and one for the judges. Counts are final and follow no revision schedule. Later change comes only through re-elections, by-elections, or runner-up succession. By-elections are held twice a year, on the 4th Sundays of April and October.

Results turn on the two Diet ballots, while the judges' vote decides no seats.

• Single-seat ballot: covers 289 districts, where each voter writes 1 candidate name and the top candidate wins.

• PR ballot: covers 176 seats in 11 blocks, where each voter chooses 1 party and seats follow party vote shares.

The same person may stand in a single-seat district and on a party list at the same time.

• Judges' national review: records voter verdicts on Supreme Court judges and awards no Diet seats.

The 27 October 2024 vote shows the pattern, with turnout at 53.85%, down 2.08 points from 55.93%. The LDP won 191 seats and Komeito 24, so their 215-seat bloc fell short of the 233-seat majority line. Although the LDP stayed the largest party, no bloc reached 233, leaving a hung parliament.

The report shows PR revival, where district losers still win list seats in narrow-loss-ratio order. Anyone marked ×, below one-tenth of district valid votes, is skipped entirely.

1. Single-seat winners: votes are tallied per candidate by district, and the top candidate is marked elected, or 当, while others are marked defeated, or 落. This produces 289 winners, 1 per district.

1. PR allocation: each party's block votes are divided by 1, 2, 3, and so on, and the largest quotients take the fixed seats in order. For example, with 3 seats and 10,000, 6,000, and 4,000 votes, the top three quotients are 10,000, 6,000, and 5,000. So A takes 2 seats, B takes 1, and C takes none.

1. PR revival order: winners follow list rank, and tied dual candidates rank by narrow-loss ratio. For example, 92.714 outranks 79.123, while 100.000 marks a district winner.

1. Deposit-forfeiture cutoff: a dual candidate below one-tenth of district valid votes is marked × and treated as off the PR list.

1. Turnout: voters divided by election-day electorate times 100, reported by sex and prefecture for each ballot.