In the 1968 election, writer Shintarō Ishihara garnered more than 3 million votes, the all-time record.
He stood as candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party; but unlike the current proportional preference system, where every preference vote for a candidate in the proportional district also counts towards the party total in the overall allocation of the proportional seats, high personal vote totals in the national district did not immediately benefit the party beyond the prestige of taking the top spot.
On the other end of the winner list, the number of votes necessary to obtain a seat was around 150,000 in the immediate postwar years.
By the 1970s when the baby boomers had entered the electorate, it took more than half a million votes for a candidate to be elected.
If there were x vacancies in the other class, the 51st to (50+x)th ranking candidates would be elected to fill the vacant seats for the remaining 3-year term.