Voting ends in Unified Local Elections

Local Elections were held across Japan yesterday completing the second stage of Japan’s Unified Local Elections. Including 9 April which was the first stage, there was a total of 1,008 elections for the following:

• Prefectural Governors: 9

• Prefectural Assemblies: 41

• City Mayors: 94

• City Assemblies: 322

• *Ward Mayors: 12

• *Ward Assemblies: 21

• Town Heads: 97

• Town Assemblies: 296

• Village Heads: 28

• Village Assemblies: 88

*These are the 23 special wards in Tokyo Prefecture

That seems like a lot of elections covering the whole of Japan, but it isn’t. Japan has a total of 1,741 cities, towns, and villages. If you consider that each has a mayor or “head” and a municipal assembly, that would be 3,482 municipal elections. That’s not including the 47 prefectures which have both a governor and prefectural assembly making for 94 more elections for a grand total of 3,576 possible elections. Therefore, the “unified” local elections accounted for only 28.24% of the total possible elections.

The two stages of the elections are as follows:
The first and second halves of the unified local elections are separated, and for the 2023 election, the voting days are April 9 for the governor and municipal assembly elections in prefectures and designated cities, and April 23 for the mayoral and municipal assembly elections in cities and towns other than designated cities.

Now I’m waiting for all results to be tallied. As of 14:00 on 24 April, all results are not yet in. I’ll be waiting for all results to be tallied before reporting totals.

Please click the button below to see the excel sheet for information regarding all the races across Japan held on 9 and 23 April.