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

[Michael Ossipoff]

Juho:

Ok, I'll let this subject go, but I just want to say one more thing,
and then show an example.

Your justifications for LR sound arbitrary. Just as you said, anyone
could express preference for any sort of standard, and no one can say
that your standard isn't right for you. That's why it's best to look
at _objective_ standards that we can all agree on.

Say a Hare quota of people has a certain number of representatives.
Another Hare quota has a different number of representatives.

Surely no one would deny that the number of representatives that a
Hare quota of people has is its "representation".
Now, if a Hare quota of people in your district has more
representation than a Hare quota of people in my district, that's what
we want to avoid in PR.

We could speak of the difference or the ratio of your and my
representatives per Hare quota, but, as I said, difference is what is
relevant in Congressional and Parliamentary voting.

In the following example, Hall's method gives the same seat allocation
as Sainte-Lague/Webster.

To dramatically bring out the difference between LR and SL, this
example has districts greatly differing in size.

In this example election, there are 3 districts, A, B, and C.

S/Q means seats per Hare quota.

Largest-Remainder:

District......Hare.Quotas.......Seats......S/Q
A................50.332................50............9934
B................1.335...................2.............1.498
C................1.333...................1...............0.75


Sainte-Lague/Webster:

A................50.332................51............1.0133
B.................1.335.................1...............0.749
C.................1.333.................1...............0.75

Difference between largest and smallest S/Q:

SL: .2643
LR: .748

The difference in the representation per Hare quota, between the best
and least represented districts, is about three times as great with
LR, in comparison to SL.

In LR, you'd have Hare quotas in those two districts differing in
their representaton by 3/4 of a seat. Is that really what you think is
fair?

Mike Ossipoff