{
  "data": {
    "id": "japan-legislative-2028",
    "country": "JP",
    "country_name": "Japan",
    "level": "national",
    "subdivision": null,
    "subdivision_name": null,
    "date": "2028-07-23",
    "date_status": "tentative",
    "kind": "legislative",
    "conditional": null,
    "timezone": "Asia/Tokyo",
    "status": "scheduled",
    "last_verified_at": "2026-10-02T12:00:00Z",
    "stale": false,
    "stale_reason": null,
    "provenance": {
      "from": "researcher agent 2026-10-02: Constitution of Japan art. 46 and Public Offices Election Act (arts. 4, 32, 40, 81, 101-2-2, 101-3, 102, 204, 257) and Diet Act (arts. 2, 10, 12) on laws.e-gov.go.jp; House of Councillors member list (sangiin.go.jp); MIC results index and 2025 release page 27sansokuhou (interim PR count sheets, 投・開票結果判明予定日時); MIC press releases on Central Election Management Council meetings 15 Jul 2022, 4 and 25 Jul 2025",
      "licence": "CC BY 4.0 (Election Index)"
    },
    "url": "https://electionindex.org/election/japan-legislative-2028",
    "races": [
      {
        "id": "sangiin",
        "key": "japan-legislative-2028/sangiin",
        "name": "House of Councillors (regular election, half the seats)",
        "body": "legislature-upper",
        "seats": 124,
        "seats_provisional": false,
        "polls_close_utc": "2028-07-23T11:00:00Z",
        "authority": {
          "id": "jp-mic",
          "name": "Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Election Department)",
          "name_local": "総務省 自治行政局選挙部",
          "role": "ministry",
          "homepage": "https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/",
          "results_index": "https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/index.html",
          "open_data": null
        },
        "status": "scheduled",
        "expected_stage_now": null,
        "observed": false,
        "final_observed": null,
        "final_expected": {
          "from": "2028-07-26T01:00:00Z",
          "by": "2028-07-31T14:59:59Z",
          "confidence": "precedent",
          "basis": "Constituency winners are proclaimed by each prefectural election commission once its election meeting has determined them (art. 101-3). The national PR winners are fixed at the PR election meeting, held on the day the returning officer has all prefectural reports or the next day (art. 81(1),(2),(4)), reported to the Central Election Management Council, which notifies and proclaims them (art. 101-2-2); election takes effect from the proclamation (art. 102). Precedent: 2022 (10 Jul vote) and 2025 (20 Jul vote) the Council received the PR result and decided the proclamation on the Friday after polling day, day 5: 15 Jul 2022 and 25 Jul 2025, with certificates handed over at 13:00 JST (MIC press releases 01gyosei15_02000329 and 01gyosei15_02000457); in 2025 the Council had fixed the election meeting for 25 Jul 10:00 JST already on 4 Jul (01gyosei15_02000452), and MIC's 結果調 was dated 'R7.7.25発表'. On a 23 Jul 2028 polling day that points to Fri 28 Jul 2028. The opening (10:00 JST Wed 26 Jul, day 3) is an ESTIMATED floor; the window closes at the end of Mon 31 Jul JST, three days past precedent. Election suits go to a High Court within 30 days (art. 204, 208); no court must confirm the result, so no court-validation stage."
        },
        "last_final": null,
        "previous": null,
        "stages": [
          {
            "stage": "election-night",
            "from": "2028-07-23T11:00:00Z",
            "by": "2028-07-24T09:00:00Z",
            "replacedAt": "2028-07-26T01:00:00Z",
            "confidence": "precedent",
            "citation": "Polls close at 20:00 JST (Public Offices Election Act art. 40: '投票所は、午前七時に開き、午後八時に閉じる'; a municipal commission may close up to four hours earlier, so some polls close before 20:00); Japan has no daylight saving time, so 11:00 UTC. Counting starts on election night. 2025 precedent: MIC's release page (soumu.go.jp/senkyo/27sansokuhou/) published PR interim counts hourly from 23:00 JST Sun 20 Jul; the 11:00 JST Mon 21 Jul sheet (第13回) shows 開票率 99.6% and the 16:00 JST sheet (第18回) 100.0%, matching the posted 開票結果. MIC's pre-election timetable (投・開票結果判明予定日時) planned the last constituency count to end at 05:00 JST (Tokyo) and the last PR count at 07:00 JST Mon. The window closes at 18:00 JST Monday, two hours past the 2025 precedent. Constituency counts appear on the 47 prefectural commissions' sites. These are count results, not the proclamation of winners.",
            "source": null,
            "observedAt": null,
            "observedSource": null
          },
          {
            "stage": "final-result",
            "from": "2028-07-26T01:00:00Z",
            "by": "2028-07-31T14:59:59Z",
            "replacedAt": null,
            "confidence": "precedent",
            "citation": "Constituency winners are proclaimed by each prefectural election commission once its election meeting has determined them (art. 101-3). The national PR winners are fixed at the PR election meeting, held on the day the returning officer has all prefectural reports or the next day (art. 81(1),(2),(4)), reported to the Central Election Management Council, which notifies and proclaims them (art. 101-2-2); election takes effect from the proclamation (art. 102). Precedent: 2022 (10 Jul vote) and 2025 (20 Jul vote) the Council received the PR result and decided the proclamation on the Friday after polling day, day 5: 15 Jul 2022 and 25 Jul 2025, with certificates handed over at 13:00 JST (MIC press releases 01gyosei15_02000329 and 01gyosei15_02000457); in 2025 the Council had fixed the election meeting for 25 Jul 10:00 JST already on 4 Jul (01gyosei15_02000452), and MIC's 結果調 was dated 'R7.7.25発表'. On a 23 Jul 2028 polling day that points to Fri 28 Jul 2028. The opening (10:00 JST Wed 26 Jul, day 3) is an ESTIMATED floor; the window closes at the end of Mon 31 Jul JST, three days past precedent. Election suits go to a High Court within 30 days (art. 204, 208); no court must confirm the result, so no court-validation stage.",
            "source": null,
            "observedAt": null,
            "observedSource": null
          }
        ],
        "sources": [
          {
            "url": "https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/sangiin/ichiran.html",
            "role": "results-final",
            "kind": "other",
            "kindReason": "no election or results marker",
            "resolvable": false,
            "origin": "race",
            "note": "MIC index of House of Councillors regular election results (参議院議員通常選挙 速報結果), one page per election: sangiin27 (R7.7.20), sangiin26 (R4.7.10) and back to the 21st (checked 2 Oct 2026). Not a page for this election; no 2028 page exists yet. On election night 2025 MIC ran a separate release page, https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/27sansokuhou/index.html, with hourly PR interim counts (中間開票状況, 23:00 Sun to 16:00 Mon JST), the PR count result (開票結果, xlsx) and the 結果調 'R7.7.25発表'. PREDICTED, not seen: a 28sansokuhou page and a data/sangiin28 page for 2028. Prefectural election commissions publish their own constituency counts.",
            "check": null
          },
          {
            "url": "https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/325AC1000000100",
            "role": "timetable",
            "kind": "other",
            "kindReason": "no election or results marker",
            "resolvable": false,
            "origin": "race",
            "note": "Public Offices Election Act (公職選挙法, Act No. 100 of 1950) on e-Gov, revision in force from 3 Sep 2026: art. 4(2) seats, art. 32 timing of the regular election, art. 40 polling hours, arts. 81(4), 95-3, 101-2-2 and 101-3 winner determination and proclamation, art. 204 election suits, art. 257 start of term. DATE WORKING: Tentative. Constitution art. 46: councillors serve six years, half elected every three years. The half elected on 10 Jul 2022 serves until 25 Jul 2028 (sangiin.go.jp member list: 任期満了 令和10年7月25日); seats up: 124 of the 248 in art. 4(2) (100 PR + 148 constituency, so 50 PR + 74 constituency), before any vacancy seats added to the same ballot. Art. 32(1): the regular election is held '議員の任期が終る日の前三十日以内', i.e. about 25 Jun-25 Jul 2028. 25 Jul 2028 is a Tuesday; the law does not prescribe a weekday, but every regular election on MIC's results index (21st 2007 to 27th 2025) was held on a Sunday, so the LATEST Sunday in the window, 23 Jul 2028, is used here. Diet exception, art. 32(2): if that window overlaps a House of Councillors session or falls within 23 days of its close, the election is held 24-30 days after the close. The ordinary session is convened in January as a rule and lasts 150 days (Diet Act arts. 2, 10) and may be extended once (art. 12): a session closing in late June still allows a July Sunday inside the art. 32(1) window, but a long extension could push polling day past 25 Jul, so the latest lawful date is not fixed until the session's end is known. The date is announced by proclamation at least 17 days before (art. 32(3)). Snap-election risk: none for this chamber, which cannot be dissolved; a House of Representatives dissolution timed to coincide could make it a double election on the same day. The House of Representatives itself is NOT profiled: its 51st general election was held on 8 Feb 2026 (MIC index: 令和8年2月8日執行), and its four-year term (Constitution art. 45; Public Offices Election Act art. 256, counted from election day) runs to 7 Feb 2030, after this horizon, unless dissolved.",
            "check": null
          },
          {
            "url": "https://www.sangiin.go.jp/japanese/joho1/kousei/giin/219/giin.htm",
            "role": "calendar",
            "kind": "other",
            "kindReason": "election page without a results marker",
            "resolvable": false,
            "origin": "race",
            "note": "House of Councillors member list (as of 17 Jun 2026), column 任期満了: 123 members end 令和10年7月25日 (25 Jul 2028) and 124 end 令和13年7月28日 (28 Jul 2031); checked 2 Oct 2026.",
            "check": null
          },
          {
            "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Councillors",
            "role": "see-also",
            "kind": "other",
            "kindReason": "no election or results marker",
            "resolvable": false,
            "origin": "race",
            "note": "No English Wikipedia article for the 2028 election yet (2028_Japanese_House_of_Councillors_election returned 404 on 2 Oct 2026).",
            "check": null
          },
          {
            "url": "https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/index.html",
            "role": "results-index",
            "kind": "other",
            "kindReason": "no election or results marker",
            "resolvable": false,
            "origin": "authority",
            "check": null
          },
          {
            "url": "https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/",
            "role": "authority-home",
            "kind": "other",
            "kindReason": "no election or results marker",
            "resolvable": false,
            "origin": "authority",
            "check": null
          }
        ],
        "page_activity": [],
        "government": null,
        "results": [],
        "live_count": null,
        "url": "https://electionindex.org/election/japan-legislative-2028#sangiin"
      }
    ]
  },
  "meta": {
    "dataset_version": "2026-10-02.be7d6f40",
    "built_at": "2026-10-02T15:42:24Z",
    "generated_at": "2026-10-02T18:13:38.376Z",
    "licence": "CC BY 4.0: credit \"Global Election Index (electionindex.org)\" and link to https://electionindex.org",
    "docs": "https://electionindex.org/docs"
  }
}