Abstract
New Japanese election system was a parallet system of single-member representation in the bloc. In theory, democracy rest on several principles. It assumes that citizens are interested in political affairs, discuss their government, and are motivated to participate in politics. It assumes that the citizens are well informed about government and decide how to voters have some meaningful choice between competing candidate. Perhaps, the most basic of all aspects of democracy is the very act of voting, without voting, democracy would not exit. But, some people don't vote or are actual prevented from voting. Why? Especially in Saitama prefecture, election turnout is the lowest in Japan. On the basis of aggregate data collected in 1996, election turnout is explained by the relations between political participation and voting costs. This paper focuses on the results and implications of elections, especially on its record-low turnout, in Saitama. The relationship betseen results and survey-level findings is also discussed.
