While Kotaro Tamura of the Liberal Democratic Party needed only 151,000 votes Sunday to secure his House of Councilors seat in Tottori Prefecture, independent Kiyomi Tsujimoto garnered roughly 718,000 votes in Osaka Prefecture but found herself a loser.
The comparison is yet another indication of the wide difference in the weight of one vote in the prefectural constituencies, which are allocated seats based on population. Tottori is allotted two seats while Osaka has six, with half of them being contested every three years.
Tamura's closest rival was Masahide Tsuchiya of the Democratic Party of Japan, who won about 114,000 votes. Tsujimoto was edged out by Issei Kitagawa of the LDP, who had roughly 735,000 votes.
Akio Koizumi, an LDP candidate in Kanagawa Prefecture, won the most votes in this year's Upper House election, with about 1.21 million. Three of the 73 successful candidates in the electoral districts received more than 1 million votes.