Does people think a principle of ‘one person, one vote’ important?

Abstract

A principle of ‘one person, one vote’ is not fully fulfilled in the Japanese National Diet elections. Do voters want their votes count equally? Or, do they allow the disparity in the relative weight of a vote? To approach this research question, I conducted a WEB survey in which half of respondents are presented a pros and cons of means to lessen the disparity. By analyzing this data, I reached following three conclusions. Firstly, only about one-third of voters are interested in the lawsuit to request a declaration of invalid election. Secondly, few voters really want their votes count equally, and more than half of voters allow the disparity of two to one. And finally, respondents who saw the information of how to realize a principle of ‘one person, one vote’ become to tolerate their view of this principle, because they recognize the difficulty of correcting disparity.