In 2002, passage of an electronic voting law allowed for the introduction of electronic voting machines in local elections. The first machine vote took place in Niimi, Okayama in June 2002. In 2003, a system for was introduced. In the 2017 general/House of Representatives election, a record number of more than 21 million Japanese voted early; at the same time overall turnout was low (the second lowest in history), so in 2017, roughly 38 % of all actual voters had voted early. For regular/House of Councillors elections, the 2019 election set a new all-time high with more than 17 million early voters, corresponding to roughly a third of actual voters in 2019 as overall turnout hit the second lowest value in history.