One of my earlier posts on how the Japan Lower House PR section works. It is now 176 PR seats
北海道 (Hokkaido) 8
東北(Tohoku) 13
北関東 (Kitakanto or North Kanto) 19
南関東 (Minamikanto or South Kanto) 22
東京 (Tokyo) 17
北陸信越 (Hokurikushinetsu) 11
東海 (Tokai) 21
近畿 (Kinki) 28
中国(Chugoku) 11
四国 (Shikoku) 6
九州 (Kyūshū) 20
I like to write up how the Japan PR system works which I think is quite unique in the world.
Japan has 180 PR seats which are split over 11 regions (namely 北海道 (Hokkaido), 東北(Tohoku). 北関東 (Kitakanto or North Kanto), 南関東 (Minamikanto or South Kanto), 東京 (Tokyo), 北陸信越 (Hokurikushinetsu), 東海 (Tokai), 近畿 (Kinki), 中国(Chugoku), 四国 (Shikoku), and 九州 (Kyūshū))
Other than Tokyo each one of these regions has several prefectures which in turn has several FPTP districts. Each voter gets to vote for a party on a PR list which gets aggregated at the regional level. Then it gets allocated on PR basis. Given the fact that the number of seats each region is different the cutoff to get seats might vary by region.
One feature of the Japanese election system is that a candidate ran run on BOTH in a FPTP seat AND on the PR list. The idea is if such a candidate loses his or her FPTP seat he or she can still get elected on the PR list as long as the ranking they hold is high enough relative to the votes his or her party got in that region. In fact the way this works can be fairly complicated as the party list for PR can have ties in it if the candidates involved are running also in a FPTP seats.
The traditional PR list would be the following
Party X list
1. Candidate 1
2. Candidate 2
.
.
Y. Candidate Y
And if Party X gets N amount of the vote then we go down the list and everyone above what N% would qualify would be elected.
The Japanese PR list allows for the following
Party X
1. Candidate 1 - pure PR list candidate
2. Candidate 2 - pure PR list candidate
3. Candidate 3 - also running in FPTP district a
3. Candidate 4 - also running in FPTP district b
3. Candidate 5 - also running in FPTP district c
4. Candidate 6 - pure PR list candidate
5. Candidate 7 - pure PR list candidate
So what happens is candidates 3 4 5 have equal ranking on the list. If any of them win their FPTP seat then they are elected and taken out of the PR list. If more than one of 3 4 or 5 lose their FPTP seat then their relative ranking are determined by their vote share they receive as a percentage of the winning candidate vote share. What this system does is to encourage a candidate to be willing to run for Party X in a district where party X is weak and have low chance of winning. The candidate can still win a seat as long as he and she is high up enough on the list and does well enough in the election with their vote share to put them higher up in the order to other losers in the same tier of the PR list.
Reminds me quite a lot of Germany's electoral system tbh, except I guess this one is not proportional
