Gunma at-large district (House of Representatives)

The Gunma at-large district was a multi-member constituency in Japan for elections to the House of Representatives. It existed until the electoral reforms of 1994, which introduced a combination of single-member districts and proportional representation. Prior to the reforms, Japan's House of Representatives was elected from medium-sized, multi-member districts, typically electing between three and five representatives per district. Gunma Prefecture, like other prefectures, was divided into at-large districts, with the number of representatives allocated to each district dependent on the prefecture's population. Voters cast a single, non-transferable vote, and the candidates with the highest vote totals were elected.

The system was often criticized for fostering intense intra-party competition, particularly within the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as candidates from the same party competed against each other for a limited number of seats within the same district. This led to a focus on personal support networks and vote-buying scandals. The electoral reforms aimed to address these issues by introducing single-member districts, where candidates compete directly against each other and are more accountable to a specific geographic area. With the introduction of single-member districts, Gunma Prefecture was divided into smaller, single-representative constituencies, and the at-large district system was abolished. Historical election results from the Gunma at-large district are significant in understanding the political dynamics of the pre-1994 electoral system in Japan and the subsequent shift towards a mixed-member proportional representation system.