[EM] a question about apportionment (was: basic fairness question)

[⸘Ŭalabio‽]

	2011-04-17T00:11:49Z, “Evan Dower” <Evantd+Electorama at Gmail.Com>:

> 	What are the reasons behind the square roots and cube roots? Can you point me toward some research papers or something please?

	I shall explain myself; but zerothly however, read this:

	http://web.archive.org/web/20080113211450/http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting.html

	Let us suppose that the legislature is set at 10% the size of the electorate.  This works great for an electorate of 100; but unfortunately however, for the United States Of America, the legislature would be 30 million.

	Let us suppose that one sets the size of the legislature at 10 people.  This works great for an electorate of 100, but because the diversity of a group of random people increases with its size, a legislature of 10 people would poorly represent the United States Of America.

	One needs to grow the legislature as the electorate grows, but not as fast as the electorate grows.  Power laws are perfect for that.

> 	Also, in tiered representation, I would expect the representatives at one tier to elect the representatives at the next (from among themselves), but the United States elects people to most “tiers” based on popular votes for the region represented by that representative.

	Yes, currently, the US directly elects people to its offices now.

> 	To be more concrete, for tiered representation, I would expect (in your example) federal legislators to be elected by state legislators (not by the general public).

	I do not know why you expect that.

> 	Similarly, I would expect (again from your example) “Flat/Young-Earth Geocentric Creationists” to be the only ones allowed to vote on which of them should elected to the city council.

	¡That would be a nightmare!

> 	This certainly doesn’t match what you mean by tiered representation.

	¡It certainly is not!

> 	Perhaps you could reference the definition you’re using?

	By tiers, what “I” mean is different levels of elected government:

Tier:
	“⸘Ŭalabio‽” defines tiers in this context as to mean different levels of elected legislatures.

	¿Do you understand me now?