Japan 2009 is GO!

[Verily]

Amusingly, the news now is that the DPJ may not have nominated enough candidates for all of the seats it is going to win in at least the Tokai region. Too many of their candidates are running both for the list and for local seats. The DPJ will inevitably win at least twelve list seats in Tokai (they won eight in 2005), but there may not be twelve DPJ candidates left for the list after local seat results.

I'm not sure what happens then--does the DPJ just forfeit the list seats? To whom?

[Хahar 🤔]

Prediction: The LDP will never form a government again.

[Kevinstat]

Amusingly, the news now is that the DPJ may not have nominated enough candidates for all of the seats it is going to win in at least the Tokai region. Too many of their candidates are running both for the list and for local seats. The DPJ will inevitably win at least twelve list seats in Tokai (they won eight in 2005), but there may not be twelve DPJ candidates left for the list after local seat results.

I'm not sure what happens then--does the DPJ just forfeit the list seats? To whom?

Is there an upper limit as to how many candidates can be on a party's regional list in Japan, perhaps varying by region?  There wouldn't be any point in more names being on a party's list than the number of list seats up for election* in that region plus the number of candidates the party has running for both the list and local seats, so an upper limit for a party's regional list of the total number of local + list seats up for election in that region (in case a party fields a candidate for all l local seats in a region and those l candidates, all of whom win their local seats, are also the top l candidates on the party's regional list and the party's list vote entitles it to all list seats as well) would effectively be no limit at all (except perhaps if you factor in vacancies).

Tell me candidate can't run for seats in more than one region, like for a local seat in Aomori Prefecture in the Tōhoku region and a regional seat in Hokkaidō, even though a ferry operator, say, from Aomori or southern Hokkaidō could be a decent candidate for both seats.  That would make finding the maximum number of candidates a party might hypothetically need to fill all its seats while giving candidates for local seats preference if it wants to a lot more difficult, plus it can add to complications like that which the DPJ might face in Tokai as well.

Anyway, the DPJ probably has only themselves to blame if they end up forfieting seats because of this, although before rolling their eyes at them one ought to consider how they would react if the British National Party, say, fielded a full slate of European Parliamentary candidates in an English European Parliamentary constituency (or have they actually done that?), where I know the list vote is used so they wouldn't risk losing seats by fielding too many candidates.

*In case my post implied otherwise, I know all 480 seats in Japan's House of Representatives are up in a general election, but I imagine there are occasionally changes in the number of local districts and/or list seats in a given region so I didn't just want to say the number or seats in that region.

[Verily]

Amusingly, the news now is that the DPJ may not have nominated enough candidates for all of the seats it is going to win in at least the Tokai region. Too many of their candidates are running both for the list and for local seats. The DPJ will inevitably win at least twelve list seats in Tokai (they won eight in 2005), but there may not be twelve DPJ candidates left for the list after local seat results.

I'm not sure what happens then--does the DPJ just forfeit the list seats? To whom?

Is there an upper limit as to how many candidates can be on a party's regional list in Japan, perhaps varying by region?  There wouldn't be any point in more names being on a party's list than the number of list seats up for election* in that region plus the number of candidates the party has running for both the list and local seats, so an upper limit for a party's regional list of the total number of local + list seats up for election in that region (in case a party fields a candidate for all l local seats in a region and those l candidates, all of whom win their local seats, are also the top l candidates on the party's regional list and the party's list vote entitles it to all list seats as well) would effectively be no limit at all (except perhaps if you factor in vacancies).

I don't know if there is an upper limit, but I can tell you that neither the LDP nor the DPJ is contesting every seat (local or list) in Japan. The LDP has 326 candidates while the DPJ has 330 candidates; there are 480 seats. This is because many candidates are running both for the list and for local seats, which is typical practice for candidates contesting marginal local seats.

(The party with the most candidates is the wacky Happiness Realization Party with 337 candidates; it's the political front for the Happy Science cult.)

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I think you have to live in the region in which you are a list candidate, and you have to live in the prefecture (but not the actual seat) in which you are a local candidate. I'm not sure on that. I think the Japanese would consider having a carpetbagger choose your seat to run in to be an honor, though.

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True, but, then again, when the DPJ was selecting candidates, it still wasn't certain that they would get an absolute majority. Now, it looks like the DPJ might win a supermajority (which is where the trouble comes in; with 330 candidates, a supermajority of 320 seats means almost every candidate wins, but of course the candidates may not be distributed with perfect efficiency).

[Kevinstat]

Thanks, as always, for the information, Verily.

[Hash]

With this, what are the chances a fair share of the DPJ caucus (in case of a supermajority) become similar in competence, intellect (and governing, gasp) to the ADQ's caucus in 2007?

[minionofmidas]

With this, what are the chances a fair share of the DPJ caucus (in case of a supermajority) become similar in competence, intellect (and governing, gasp) to the ADQ's caucus in 2007?

Not really comparable. The DPJ isn't exactly coming out of nowhere on the strength of one popular personality. A lot of their people are bound to have experience in local administration and/or parliamentary opposition.

[Tender Branson]

Prediction time (just a wild guess, because of weird Japanese polling):

DPJ: 48%
LDP: 28%
NKP: 8%
JCP: 6%
SDP: 4%
Others: 6%

[Tender Branson]

11 Mio. people have already voted early, which is 10% of all eligible people.

This means that early voting figures are up by 63% compared with 2005.

All in all, total turnout will most likely be somewhere between 70 and 80 Mio. votes.

[Harry Hayfield]

Polls have just opened (2300 BST / 2200 GMT / 1800 EDT / 1500 PDT)

[Kevinstat]

One thing I noticed from the Wikipedia article List of Districts of the House of Representatives of Japan is that the ratio of local seats to list seats varies from region to region, and not just because a region has a number of local seats that isn't divisible by 5 or a number of list seats that isn't divisible by 3.  (The ratio or local to list seats nationwide is 5:3 or approx. 1.667:1)  The island of Shikoku and its surrounding islets make up a block constituency that elects 6 members proportionally, while that region's four prefectures are divided into 13 single-member districts.  Hokkaidō Prefecture (the island of Hokkaidō and its surrounding islets), on the other hand, elects 8 members proportionally but is divided into only 12 single-member districts.  Shikoku has the largest ratio of local seats to list seats (approx. 2.167:1), while Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo) has the smallest (25:17 or approx. 1.471:1) (Hokkaidō has the second smallest ratio at exactly 1.5:1).  Not splitting prefectures among block constituencies and not confining single-member districts to within one prefecture probably has something to do with that, although I'm not sure it can explain the entire variance.  The larger ratios seem concentrated to the west of Tokyo (Tōhoku being the one exception and the division of its 39 seats between local and list seats is within one seat of the national average), while the smaller ratios are more widespread (including Tokai and Kinki) but largely in and around Tokyo and on Hokkaidō.

[ilikeverin]

The Asahi Shimbun apparently took a poll of every single constituency (with an overall sample size of 190,338, 130,879 valid responses?!).

The numbers are something like

DPJ: 320 seats
LDP: 100 seats
New Komeito: less than 30
Commies: 9
SDP: 9
PNP: 3
Your Party: 4
New Party Nippon: 1
New Party Daichi: 1

This adds to 477 seats, so there's some rounding, but... I'm still amazed about the ridiculous survey numbers (adds up to approximately 400 voters surveyed per constituency)

[Tender Branson]

Early voter turnout high

TOKYO - Early voter turnout in Japanese lower house elections on Sunday was slightly higher than in a poll four years ago, the government said, after the first four hours of voting.

By 11am (0200 GMT, 10am Singapore time), 21.37 per cent of Japan's 103 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, up slightly on 20.61 per cent at the same time in the 2005 election, the ministry of internal affairs said.

The turnout for the 2005 election was considered high, at 67.51 per cent, although it was below the post-war high of 76.99 per cent in 1958.

Polling stations close at 8pm (1100 GMT, 7pm Singapore time) with the first exit poll results expected shortly thereafter.

Opinion polls have forecast a landslide win for the main opposition party, the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan, over Prime Minister Taro Aso's long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_423255.html

Don't know if early voters are already factored in in these numbers ...

[Tender Branson]

Early voters are probably not factored in in these numbers, because at 10am local time 13% have voted and early voters (who voted until Saturday) alone accounted for about 11% of all eligible voters. That would mean that only 2% of eligible voters voted between 7am and 10am. Is this reasonable ?

[Meeker]

Early voters are probably not factored in in these numbers, because at 10am local time 13% have voted and early voters (who voted until Saturday) alone accounted for about 11% of all eligible voters. That would mean that only 2% of eligible voters voted between 7am and 10am. Is this reasonable ?

Not if Japanese voting patterns are anything like American. Which they probably aren't, so who the hell knows. Probably doesn't include early voters though.

[Tender Branson]

I´ll update my prediction:

DPJ: 49%
LDP: 25%
NKP: 9%
JCP: 7%
YP: 3%
SDP: 3%
PNP: 2%
NPN: 2%

[Tender Branson]

At 2 pm, turnout was 35.19%, up from 34.94% in 2005.

[Tender Branson]

The Japanese MIA has announced that up to Saturday, 13.984.866 people have voted early, which accounts for 13.4% of the eligible 104.344.170 voters.

A seperate report shows that until 10am local time 13.2% of eligible voters have already cast their ballot.

This of course means that the early voters are not included in these numbers.

[Tender Branson]

4 pm turnout update:

41.8% (2005: 42.6%)

Adjusted with early voters: 55.2% (2005: 51.3%)

[Harry Hayfield]

6.00pm update:

48.40% (+1.60% on 2005)

[minionofmidas]

The Asahi Shimbun apparently took a poll of every single constituency (with an overall sample size of 190,338, 130,879 valid responses?!).

Similar polls are done in India (not every single constituency, but basically separate polls of every important group in a sizable number of constituencies of different profile, with overall numbers of people polled in the tens of thousands.) Where group dynamics are often not correlated and some important groups won't be reached at all by nation-wide (and that means telephone) polls, the approach is without alternative if you want to have at least a chance to get it right.

Sounds excessive in Japan, though. Note that the results are really much the same as those of "normal" polls.

[Harry Hayfield]

NHK World Exit Poll: DPJ 298 - 329 LDP 84 - 131

[Silent Hunter]

Harry got there first.

[Harry Hayfield]

Breaking News: Aso to stand down as PM and LDP president

[minionofmidas]

That was quick. Though not, of course, unexpected.