[EM] Webster vs Hare for PR

MIKE OSSIPOFF nkklrp at hotmail.com
Mon Apr 5 15:22:03 PDT 2004


You wrote:

The Congress of Ecuador has a dilemma, What kind of formula to choice? A
quotient  formula or dividing formula. This moment the congress has two k=
ind of formula, such as: Wesbter and Hare.
What is the better? and why?. I think the better is Wesbter because to
carry out the monotony.

I reply:

Though I don't discuss PR, because I specialize in single-winner methods, I 
can't resist answering that question. But if anyone challenges my answer, I 
won't debate PR.

Webster is better than Hare.

Webster is monotonic, and Hare is non-monotonic, in two ways. Hare violates 
Votes-Monotonicity and House-Monotonicity. A party can lose a seat because 
someone raised their candidates in their ranking. A party can lose a seat 
because another seat is added to the house.

Both STV and Largest Remainder share those 2 kinds of non-monotonicity.

Webster is more proportional than STV and Largest Remainder.

Webster maximizes proportionality, as described in my article at the 
website:

http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/vote

As I said, I don't discuss PR anymore, and this reply is a 1-time exception 
to that rule. But I refer you to my PR articles at the website named above.

Of course, if it's desired to vote for candidates instead of parties, then 
STV would become the best choice, even though it's non-monotoniic, and even 
though it's less proportional than Webster.

But the Largest Remainder list method has no justification. There's never a 
justifiction for using Largest Remainder. Webster is the only list method 
that can be justified.

Some STV versions are described at the above-named website.

Webster is also often known as Sainte-Lague. Sainte-Lague is worded 
differently from Daniel Webster's proposal, but they're the same method, 
giving the same outcome, though by a different procedure.

That's all I have to say about PR, which I never discuss.

For more, I refer you to the website that I named above in this message.

Mike Ossipoff

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