The Lower House Considers Saint-Laguë Method

The chairman of multi-party council for revision of election system of the House of Representatives (Lower House), Keisuke Suzuki, made a proposal for new system in proportional district in the meeting in late August. The system is called the Saint-Laguë method, which is aadvantagous for small parties to increase their seats. However, the reform does not seem to be more than a trivial change in electoral system. 

The Lower House takes paralleled single-seat and proportional election system. It has 289 seats from single-seat districts all over Japan and 176 seats for party-list proportional representation. Every voter has two votes, one is for single-seat district with name of a candidate and another is for proportional district with name of a party. In the election of February 2026, the Liberal Democratic Party achieved 249 seats in single-seat districts and 67 seats in proportional district. The LDP gave some proportional seats away, because it received votes beyond the candidates on its slate.

 

Before the Japan Innovation Party suddenly proposed seat reduction of the Diet in October 2025, fundamental election reform had been a critical issue for parties. Suzuki’s proposal was one of the attempts to introduce an appropriate system.

 

The seats of proportional district in the Lower House are currently determined with the D’Hondt method, or Jefferson method, which is common in the Western countries. In the method, a party with greatest number of votes which is divided by 1 takes a seat. Then the votes of that party will be halved and the second seat is allotted to the party with second greatest number of votes. When the party which votes were halved takes its second seat, the votes possessed by the party is divided by 3.

 

The Saint-Laguë method has the same basis as the D’Hondt. The possessed votes are divided by 1, 3, 5… in the Saint-Laguë method. This method is advantageous for small parties. If this method is applied to the result of February election, Sanseito which secured 14 seats adds two seats and Team Miral with 11 seats does one. Party of Life jumps up from 0 to 6, and Conservative Party of Japan from 0 to 4. The LDP reduces 14 seats.

 

The Saint-Laguë method was originally proposed by Team Mirai, which prefers computer-based politics. But the LDP need some cooperation of a small party to achieve simple majority in the Upper House. It is likely that Suzuki with LDP performed to apply a policy proposed by Team Mirai, expecting cooperation from the party to pass bills in the Diet.

 

Larger opposition parties are basically against the Saint-Laguë method, because they may reduce their seats in this method. Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Democratic Party for the People hope to promote fundamental reform, which may examine relevancy of current system with single-seats and the proportional. It is undeniable that discussion over election system has not been about “method”, but proper reflection of voters’ will to politics.

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