<HTML><BODY>> From: juho4880@yahoo.co.uk<br>
><br>
> One more tool that can be useful in some situations is the<br>
> hierarchical structure of the states/parties. To guarantee that<br>
> certain set of states/parties will not be underrepresented they could<br>
> form a team/alliance. When seats are allocated to that team they<br>
> could lose (in typical allocation methods) only one seat to rounding<br>
> errors instead on many of them losing a seat. Geographic alliances<br>
> would maybe be more natural than e.g. an alliance of small states.<br>
<br>
What about sorting the States based on population and then splitting<br>
them into 2 groups such that the total population in each group is as<br>
equal as possible.<br>
<br>
The fractional seat is then split between the 2 groups based on (Webster?)<br>
... or maybe Webster should be used directly?<br>
<br>
This is then applied to each group recursively.<br>
<br>
If any State ends up with zero seats, it is removed from the process<br>
and given a seat directly. The process is then re-run, until it<br>
completes with all remaining States getting at least 1 seat.<br>
<br>
This pretty much is forced to be unbiased between small and large States<br>
size. However, perhaps it would be biased in other ways.<br>
<br>
An additional rule could then be that States are allowed to form groups<br>
'manually', and manual groups cannot be split in two by the algorithm<br>
(until the group being processed is the manual group itself).<br>
<br>
><br>
> I already mentioned the different voting power. A simple method in<br>
> that direction would be to elect one representative from every state<br>
> and give her voting power in relation to the number of people she<br>
> represents. Or maybe large states would be given n seats with 1/n of<br>
> the voting power of the state etc. Maybe the building where these<br>
> representatives will work has a fixed number of physical seats =><br>
> fill those seats and allocate voting power according to that.<br>
<br>
The logistics of this would make the legislature less efficient. One<br>
possible rule would be that all Representatives must have voting<br>
strengths between 0.9 and 1.1 and a detailed count only happens if<br>
the vote is close (or if there is a motion demanding it).<br>
<br>
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