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

[Michael Ossipoff]

> Juho:
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>
You said:


>
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> 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?
>
>
[endquote]

Ok, I have to admit that, if the country is divided into single-member
districts, then a small party, liked by only 5 percent of the voters,
hasn't a chance of being seated. So, in that instance, of course a largest
party could do much better in comparison to a smaller one. So of course
what you said can be true.

But that's because it isn't PR. And, for varying numbers of seats per
district, the fewer seats per district, the less it's PR, even if it's
nominally a PR system. So yes, small district size unquestionably,
undeniably works for large parties and against small parties, in a "PR"
system (which becomes less and less like PR as the districts become
smaller).

Completely aside from that, for a given district-size, d'Hondt favors
larger parties, and continues to for all district-sizes (although of course
it becomes meaningless to speak of PR if the districts are single-member
and there's no topping-up)

Mike Ossipoff


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> Juho
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