[EM] Juho: Seat% and vote%--What I mean by "unattainable".

[Juho Laatu]

On 16.7.2012, at 1.58, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

> Juho:
> 
> Seat% and Vote%:
> 
> I don't just mean that it's generally impossible to make all the
> parties' seat% equal to their vote%.  Of course that's impossible. But
> I mean more than that.
> 
> I mean that it's also in general, with fixed house-size, impossible to
> even put every party's seat% as close as possible to its vote%.
> 
> In general, no method can do that. Not SL, and not LR.
> 
> As I said, putting every party's seat% as close as possible to its
> vote% amounts to putting every party's number of seats as close as
> possible to its number of Hare quotas.
> 
> Of course that's generally impossible with fixed house-size.
> 
> But, if you want to put each party's seat% _as close as possible_ to
> its vote%, than that means you want to put each party's number of
> votes as close as possible to its number of Hare quotas.
> 
> And that desire (generally unattainable with fixed house-size), on
> your part,

I note again that I have not set any such target.

> was the premise of an argument that I've posted here a few
> times in recent days. An argument whose conclusion was that what you
> say you want undeniably leads to your wanting what Sainte-Lague does.
> I won't repeat that argument here, but it's in several recent posts,
> over the past few days.
> 
> Equal representation and s/q argument:
> 
> But there is one argument of mine that I'd like to repeat in this
> post. I'm repeating it because it's so simple and brief. And because
> you have either missed it, or tried to evade it. If the latter, then
> I'm now making you have to evade it twice. Of course refusal to answer
> would be a perfectly good evasion method, and I won't criticize you
> for it.
> 
> You said that you agree that people have a right to equal
> representation for everyone (too the extent achievable).

Not really, but if we want to set equal representation as our ideal target, we can approximate that with different seat allocation algorithms.

> 
> Equal representation for everyone means equal representation for each
> person. Equal representation for each person means an equal number of
> seats for each person. An equal number of seats for each person means
> equal s/q
> (where q is a unit of population or vote).
> 
> Therefore, you agree that people have a right to equal s/q, to the
> extent achievable.
> 
> If you disagree with one or more of the statements in the two
> paragraphs before this one, then don't hesitate to say which
> statement(s) you disagree with, and why.

I think that was quite ok with the addition that we have set equal representation as our target, and we are talking only about approximately equal representation. I'm not sure if those paragraphs intended to say that SL or s/q or seats per person is the only correct way to measure "to the extent achievable". If that's the case then the paragraps are too strict.

> 
> Advantage of LR:
> 
> As I've said, LR's value is

I guess "one value".

Juho


> as a contingency-plan for if splitting
> strategy were a problem in SL, and remained even if the 1st SL
> denominator were raised from 1 to 2.
> 
> In other words, if people are abusing rounding-off to the nearest
> integer,  and if the problem can't be avoided, then abandon rounding
> off, and, instead just round up the parties with the largest
> remainder (fractional part of a Hare quota).
> 
> You'd be substituting, for rounding-off, a sort of horse-race that
> gives the next seat to the party with the largest fractional part of a
> Hare quota.
> 
> Why is the Hare quota the best divisor for that method?
> 
> Because there are as many Hare quotas are there seats. That means that
> it's always possible, by rounding some parties up and some down, to
> give a number of seats equal to the desired house-size.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
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