[EM] IIAC. Juho: Census re-districting instead of PR for allocating seats to districts.

[Michael Ossipoff]

>
> Juho:
>
>
You said:


>
> That is a quite natural measure and criterion. Maybe more so than the idea
> of differences in the proportion of seats per person. Election/allocation
> methods are supposed to do what the people say, and leaving some people
> unnoticed or noticing non-existing ghost people sounds like exactly what
> the methods should not do.
>
> The resulting allocation can be compared with the ideal (fractional)
> allocation, and the difference can be given as number of people (easier to
> understand than e.g. difference in quota).
>
>


Ok, when you say it that way, I see what you mean. You're speaking of a
fairness-measure based on the number of district-residents ignored (when a
district doesn't get a remainder seat), or nonexistent people who are
counted (when a district gets a remainder seat). You'd like to minimize the
sum of those wrongs.
Alright, that's a valid concern and fairness standard. But which is more
important?: That procedural counting, or actually comparing disparities in
how much representation different people have?

You might say that your standard is more than a procedural count, that it
genuinely measures unfairness. But does it measure fundamental unfairness
as well as the examination of disparities in different people's
representation? Isn't a person's representation really the quantity that
we're interested in these allocations? Shouldn't it be equal, as nearly as
possible?

You might say that when a district doesn't get a remainder seat, some of
its members have no representation. But examine that claim. Which members
of the district are unrepresented? Say your district doesn't get a
remainder seat. Are you unrepresented? If you say "Yes", then how can you
say that?--Your district has parliamentary seats. The parliament-members
occupying those seats represent you, as a resident of that district. Your
district's seats per person is the measure of how much representation you
have.

No one is really unrepresented. No one is without district representation.
But there are differences in people's district represented, as measured by
their districts' s/p.

Mike Ossipoff
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20120618/7f5a3bd9/attachment-0003.htm>