[EM] Proportional means equal portions of the whole.

[Bart Ingles]

Tom Round wrote:

[...]
> PS: Could I please have some feedback from others on the list as to whether
> people are finding the arguments for the Droop of the Hare quota more
> convincing.

Good point about Hare's effective 1/2n quota for that last candidate to
be elected.  Droop appears to be avoiding that worst-case scenario by
using a more moderate reduction in quota size for all candidates.

What might be helpful is examples showing where Droop and Hare each
excel, if possible.  I suggest a simple 2-seat election, with as many
candidates as needed to make the point.

Example:

50 ABC
24 BAC
26 CAB

Hare: Quota = 50
A wins first seat; all A votes exhausted.
C wins 2nd seat with only 26 votes.
-- 24 BAC votes wasted?

Droop: Quota = 34
A wins first seat; 16 votes transferred to B
B wins 2nd seat with 40 votes.
-- 6 excess B votes + 26 CAB votes wasted? (total = 32?)

This seems ambiguous; maybe I don't have the definition of wasted votes
right.  It doesn't really seem fair to call the 6 excess B votes
"wasted" under Droop when comparing it to Hare, since there are only a
total of 40 B votes, still less than what Hare's quota would have been. 
To call the last 6 "excess" in the Droop election, one would have to
concede that 16 of the 50 "A" votes in the Hare election were "excess",
giving a total of 40 wasted votes for Hare.

So by one definition of wastage, Hare vs. Droop should be 24:26, and in
the second definition, Hare vs. Droop wastage would be 40:32.

Intuitively, I have a hard time deciding whether B or C is more entitled
to the 2nd slot in this example.

Bart