[EM] Sainte-Lague vs d'Hondt for party list PR

[Juho Laatu]

On 3.7.2012, at 14.44, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

>> In a small district, very small parties will be excluded, who wouldn't be excluded in an at-large allocation. But the big party will get more seats in the at-large allocation too.
> 
> Do you have an example (or a definition) where (in D'Hondt) large parties are likely to get more seats when a country is divided in larger districts?
>  
> [endquote]
>  
> No, but it's an unquestionable fact. For two intervals between consecutive integers, n to n+1, and N to N+1, the bigger N is, in comparison to n, the greater is the factor by which the N interval party's expected s/v is greater than the n party's expected s/v.
>  
> AT large, or in large districts, N can be greater than n by a greater amount, meaning that d'Hondt's bias is greater. That gives more seats to a large party.

It seems that you are talking about one district whose population varies, while I talk about a country (with constant population) where the number of districts (with district based D'Hondt allocation) varies. Do you agree that in the latter case the best strategy of the largest parties is to have small districts?

Juho




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20120703/e7b59ca6/attachment-0004.htm>