Fake ballots for the July 20 House of Councillors election were found at the vote counting venue in Higashikurume in the Tokyo suburbs.

Officials of the city's election commission said staff members reported a total of 38 pieces of paper that were about the same size and color as the actual ballot paper but obviously not the real thing.

Ten of them were for electoral district voting and the remaining 28 were for proportional representation voting.

The officials said they had the name of a specific political party written on them.

They said the fake ballots were processed as invalid votes and had no impact on the election results.

The officials said they will work on preventing something similar from happening in future elections.