A high court ruled Wednesday that the gap in the weight of votes in last October's Lower House election amounted to "a state of unconstitutionality," despite previous high court rulings accepting the level of disparity.
Of the 14 lawsuits dealing with the weight disparities of up to 1.98 in the House of Representatives election, the Nagoya High Court is the first court to rule the vote gap was not in accordance with the one-equal-vote-per-voter principle protected under the Constitution.
The defendants — the election commissions of Gifu, Aichi, and Mie prefectures — insisted they narrowed vote weight disparities to under twofold in accordance with earlier rulings by the Supreme Court. The top court had said that general elections with disparities greater than twofold were in "a state of unconstitutionality."