AKB48�s �4th General Election� will be held on June 6th at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. The election was announced on March 25th at AKB48�s concert at Saitama Super Arena. This election will allow fans to vote for the senbatsu members in AKB48�s 27th single. This will be the 4th consecutive election since 2009.

This time AKB48 and their sister groups SKE48, NMB48, and HKT48 will be included, making it a total of 243 girls you can vote for. There will be 64 �seats� for the girls split up into four groups. Group 1 will be those who rank from 1-16. Group 2 will be from 17-32. Group 3 will be from 33-48. And, Group 4 will be from 49-64.

In 2009 the group�s ace Maeda Atsuko took first place, in 2010 Oshima Yuko took first, and then Maeda took first place back in 2011. What will the rankings be this year, especially considering the recent shocking news?

The election single will be AKB48�s 26th single �Manatsu no Sounds good!�, which will be released on May 23rd.

Source: Oricon