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

[Michael Ossipoff]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 3:39 AM, Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> I think you are making the question quite complex and quite detailed.

Speaking detailedly and specifically is necessary. You're saying that
you want to ignore details. That won't do.

You said:

 I also don't know if this is a reply to something specific that I
said or just general observations on what kind of systems I might
like.

[endquote]

It's both. It's based on what you said about what your goal is.

You said:

>
> One basic approach that I find quite decent is the idea that if one wants to have accurate proportional representation, then n% of the votes should lead to approximately n% of the seats.

[endquote]

I showed in my previous post that, if you want n% of the votes to get
n% of the seats, that an only be achieved by making the parties' s/q
equal.


You said:

That in a way says something about the roots of the idea of
proportional representation.

[endquote]

Yes.


You asked:

Is this a helpful definition of my rough approach or should I say
something more?

[endquote]

Yes, that's a sufficient definition of your approach. No, you've fully
specified it and no more description is needed.

And your goal is another way of saying that you want the s/q to be
equal. That's what SL does. It puts each party's s/q as close as
possible to the ideal equal value of s/q.


Below is where Juho quoted one of my arguments.

Mike Ossipoff


>
> Juho
>
>
> On 13.7.2012, at 2.50, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
>> Juho:
>>
>> Let me put it this way:
>>
>> You like the Hare quota, calculated based on the preferred house-size.
>> Total votes divided by the preferred total number of seats.
>>
>> If you like the Hare quota, then would you object to putting each
>> party's seats as close as possible to its number of Hare quotas?
>>
>> If you object to that, then please tell why.
>>
>> If you don't object to it:
>>
>> Remember that that Hare quota was based on a preferred (but ultimately
>> not required) total number of seats for the parliament. Do you think
>> that if we had "preferred" a different number of seats, that would
>> somehow be less fair? ...that the resulting allocation would be less
>> fair?
>>
>> If not, then you agree that the Hare quota isn't privileged as a divisor.
>>
>> So, if you liked putting the parties' seats as close as possible to
>> their Hare quotas, the result of dividing their votes by the Hare
>> quota, then how could you not like, just as much, putting the parties'
>> seats as close as possible to the result of dividing their seats by
>> some other divisor? (We could call that other divisor the Hare quota,
>> based on some different preferred (but not required) house-size)
>>
>> Mike Ossipoff
>> .
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