The voter turnout for Sunday's House of Councilors election in Japan was 58.51%, up 6.46 percentage points from the previous Upper House poll in 2022, the internal affairs ministry said Monday.
The country posted a voter turnout exceeding 55% in an Upper House election for the first time since 2010, when the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan was in power.
In Sunday's election, the voter turnout topped the 2022 levels in all of Japan's 47 prefectures and surpassed 60% in 12 of them.
The highest figure by prefecture was 62.55% marked by Yamagata, while the lowest was Tokushima's 50.48%. In Tottori, the political home base of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the turnout was 55.04%, placing the prefecture 41st.
The ministry also said that the number of early voters in the election increased by over 30% from the 2022 level to 26,182,089, hitting a record high for national elections including for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber.
The share of early voters among all eligible voters was 25.12%, up 6.44 points from 2022. Early voters increased as the election coincided with the second day of a three-day weekend through Monday.
This time, early voting was conducted at about 6,900 locations nationwide, while regular voting on Sunday was held at about 44,800 polling stations.
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