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6/25/2020 Details of 1996 (Gyo-Tsu) 28 | Judgments of the Supreme Court  move to the main contents Sitemap About this site Privacy Policy search by keyword About the Judicial System Supreme Court  in Japan Publications Japanese  Judgments of the The Legal Training and The Training and Research Supreme Supreme Court Research Institute of Japan Institute for Court Oﬃcials Court Library Judgments of the Supreme Court TOP > Supreme Court of Japan > Judgments of the Supreme Court > Search Results 1996 (Gyo-Tsu) 28 Back Date of the judgment (decision) 1996.05.31 Case Number 1996 (Gyo-Tsu) 28 Reporter Minshu Vol. 50, No. 6 at 1360 Judgment concerning the case where the grounds that the voter is on Title a trip on the date of election to outside the area of the municipality in which his/her voting district is located fall under the grounds for absentee voting Case name Result Court of the Prior Instance Summary of the judgment (decision) Case to seek revocation of a determination on the validity of the election of the mayor of Suzu City, and nulliﬁcation of election Judgment of the Second Petty Bench, partially dismissed, partially quashed, and partially terminated Nagoya High Court, Kanazawa Branch, Judgment of December 11, 1995 1. The grounds that the voter is on a trip on the date of election to outside the area of the municipality in which his/her voting district is located may be deemed to fall under the grounds for absentee voting prescribed in Article 49, paragraph (1), item (ii) of the Public Oﬃces Election Act, i.e. “due to an unavoidable business,” only when there are such circumstances where the purpose of the trip is business that is necessary out of courtesy according to the socially accepted ideas or where it is extremely diﬃcult to reschedule the trip to any day other than the date of election. 2. Where absentee voting was conducted through a sloppy procedure for administration and execution---e.g. the chairperson of the election administration commission accepted absentee votes without fulﬁlling the duty to examine whether or not the grounds the voters argued fell under any of the statutory grounds for absentee voting, and at the place for making an entry for vote, absentee votes were cast in eﬀect https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=262 1/8

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1996 (Gyo Tsu) 28 [Judgment of the Second Petty Bench, partially dismissed, partially quashed, and partially terminated]

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether denying absentee ballots to voters outside of the country for official ballots is sufficient to dispute the election result.

Alleged Acts: When a voter is outside of the municipality on the election date for unavoidable business that individual qualifies for an absentee ballot. The chairperson must examine those ballot to determine whether they classify as unavoidable business.1,713 absentee ballots of 17,512 total votes were cast. 293 voters cast absentee ballots stating that they were unable to go to the voting place of election day without additional explanation. The voters failed to mention the purposes of that trip so the court could assess whether they were classified as municipal business. In order to be defined as unavoidable business the trip must be difficult to reschedule or a courtesy according to socially accepted ideas. The chairman failed to require additional explanation into the need for an absentee ballot.

Summary: The court determined that the administration failed to provide proper training on absentee ballots and how to deal with them. Thus, the inexperienced voters did not look to whether the voter met the unavoidable business standard. 56 of those absentee ballots clearly failed to meet the threshold. 612 lack sufficient information to determine whether the threshold was met. 18 absentee ballots were counted without corresponding names. In the election the share of absentee ballots for the winning candidate was 12.5%. The share of absentee ballots for the defeated candidate was 6.5%. The court stated that absentee ballots were avaliable in exception cases to diminish the risk of voter fraud. The court found the number of absentee ballots and training failures sufficient to question the overall fairness of the voting process. The court notably reach this conclusion even though — after excluding the arguably valid absentee ballots — the number of ballots in question was less than the victory margin. Further, the number released after the election exceeded the total number of electors by 16 votes.

Conclusion: The impact of the voting disparity were severe enough to question the fairness of the election. The court determined that the disparities were likely to change the outcome of the election.

Legal Issue(s)

Disputing Results
Electoral Integrity

Region: Asia-Pacific

Country: Japan

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: General

Date of decision: May 31, 1996

Geolocation

Latitude: 35.73293062845158

Longitude: 139.75537618376217

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

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