[EM] Typo

[Joseph Malkevitch]

Dear Election List,

The issue of whether or not a particular method of apportionment is  
biased is rather complex it seems to me. Although I greatly respect  
the work of Balinski and Young I do not find the discussion they have  
about bias totally compelling. (Look at the diagram on page 72 of the  
revised edition of their book to see data for the apportionment of  
the House of the Representative using the Balinski-Young measure of  
bias.) One problem for me is that the Constitution requires that each  
state get one seat. Thus, a state can get a set even if in some sense  
it might not be entitled to this in a pairwise comparison framework.  
The Constitution gives small (and large) states one seat  
automatically. Thus, it seems to me that one has to "sort out" the  
effects due to the Constitutional requirement of 1 seat for each  
state and the effects of the method of apportionment. Balinski and  
Young do take this issue into account but it is not clear to me if  
their way is the only reasonable one. In the year 2000, Huntington- 
Hill and Webster gave the same apportionment. In 1990, they differed  
with regard to 1 seat between two states. (Webster gave one more seat  
to MA. at the expense of Oklahoma, and Huntington-Hill the other  
other way around.)

Best,

Joe





On Dec 8, 2006, at 2:29 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:

>
> I accidentally said that Hill has "unbias". I meant to say that it  
> has bias.
>
> Mike Ossipoff
>
> p.s. Right now is close to the anniversary of the date when Webster  
> was
> replaced by Hill, for apportioning the House.
>
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------------------------------------------------
Joseph Malkevitch
Department of Mathematics
York College (CUNY)
Jamaica, New York 11451

Phone: 718-262-2551 (Voicemail available)

My new email is:

malkevitch at york.cuny.edu

web page:

http://www.york.cuny.edu/~malk



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