ニュース 2015/07/14 DPJ submits Election Law amendment to narrow “vote value gap” in Upper House elections to less than two fold On July 14, the Democratic Party of Japan, Komeito, the Club of Independents, and the People’s Life Party jointly submitted a bill to revise the Public Offices Election Act to the House of Councillors. The bill will combine twenty prefectures into ten electoral districts, each consisting of two prefectures [currently each prefecture itself is an electoral district], and increasing the number of seats in some [more populous] districts by twelve, as well as reducing the number of seats in other [less populous] districts by twelve. Overall, it aims to narrow the vote value gap to no more than 1.945. DPJ Upper House Caucus Secretary General, Yuichiro Hata discussed the legislation at his subsequent press conference, saying, “The Supreme Court has ruled that the vote value gap in both Houses of the Diet is in ‘a state of unconstitutionality’. The Public Offices Election Act already stipulates that the vote value gap for the House of Representatives must be less than two fold, so it is important for us [members of the House of Councillors] to aim for less than two fold also.” He explained the significance of submitting the bill on this occasion, saying “The Supreme Court ruling can be interpreted as indicating the difficulty of maintaining electoral districts based on prefectures. That is why we decided to submit a proposal to combine two separate prefectures into one electoral district, and narrow the vote value gap to less than two fold.”