Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Most Peculiar Rules of Our Incipient Elections

According to the Asahi Shimbun...

1) For a candidate who is double-listed as both a district candidate and a proportional bloc seat candidate, he or she can win a proportional bloc seat if and only if he or she garners at least 10% of the valid votes (spoiled ballots do not count) in the district contest.

2) For candidates who are double-listed as both district candidates and proportional bloc seat candidates and who hold the same rank on the proportional list (the incumbent 23 LDP Tokyo district seat holders are all ranked #1 on the LDP's Tokyo proportional list, for example) those who fail to win district seats will be awarded proportional seats on the basis of how narrowly they lost to the eventual winner in the district election they contested.
But wait, for that second one, is it a relative loss or an absolute loss -- i.e., how narrowly the candidate lost in terms of the percentage of the total valid votes or just the number of votes that separate the losing candidate from the eventual winner?

2 comments:

  1. John Mathew3271:48 AM

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  2. Sophie1:48 AM

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