Real life impact of the "one-person, one-vote" rule
This paper proposes and engages in an exploratory study of the real life impact of the “one-person, one-vote” rule in constitutional politics.
The “one-person, one-vote” rule originated in U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s, and has been imported into Japanese constitutional politics in the following decades. It is one of the rare fields in which the Japanese courts (including the Supreme Court) have taken an active stance in the application of judicial review, and has resulted in a tug-of-war between the judicial and legislative branches over the extent to which the electoral system has to be modified to abide by this rule. With each national election new lawsuits are filed, and electoral representation has been considerably altered as a result of such litigation and the rulings. Despite this, neither the real-life impact of this doctrine, nor the process of litigation (of who is bringing this litigation, how, and to what effect) has been studied in depth.
The paper will first review the origin and application of this rule in the U.S. and Japan. Then it will discuss how this has resulted in a series of electoral reforms in Japan, especially in the reallocation of seats from rural to urban areas. The author then proposes a framework for studying the real-life impact of such changes in electoral representation. In particular, within the context of accelerating demographic shifts, the author will examine the impact of changes in electoral representation to the most rural parts and the most urban parts of the country. Ultimately the author is concerned with whether a mode of representation solely based on the size of the population truly represents the voices of people across Japan. This impact study will form a basis for such a critical inquiry.