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6/25/2020 Details of 1996 (Gyo-Tsu) 28 | Judgments of the Supreme Court (List of the Dead I, List of the Dead II, List of Appellees of Final Appeal I, and List of Appellees of Final Appeal II: Omitted) Justice KAWAI Shinichi Presiding Judge Justice ONISHI Katsuya Justice NEGISHI Shigeharu Justice FUKUDA Hiroshi (This translation is provisional and subject to revision.) (* Translated by Judicial Research Foundation) About the Supreme Court   Access to the Supreme Court  Organization Chart of the Supreme Court  Justices of the supreme court Judicial System in Japan Publications Judgments of the Supreme Court  Budgets Supreme Court Library  The Legal Training and Research Institute of Japan  Topics The Training and Research Institute for Court Oﬃcials Supreme Court of Japan 4-2 Hayabusa-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8651 JAPAN Phone: (81)-(0)3-3264-8111 Copyright © Supreme Court of Japan. All rights reserved. https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=262 8/8

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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

1996 (Gyo-Tsu) 28 _ Judgments of the Supreme Court.pdf
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Election Judgments - IFES

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

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