Section 08 · 3 entries
Apportionment
Dividing seats between places.
Dividing a fixed number of seats among places of unequal population is a rounding problem, and rounding problems have no clean answer. Three entries on divisor sequences, quota-plus-leftovers, and what has to give when a guaranteed minimum meets a fixed chamber size.
Every entry in Apportionment
Each one is a single rule and what it demonstrably does, with the country and the period named.
- 8.1Divisor methodsChoosing a divisor and rounding, and how the rounding rule quietly favours larger or smaller places.
- 8.2RemaindersQuota plus leftovers: simple, intuitive, and the source of the paradoxes.
- 8.3Seats and placesGuaranteed minimums, fixed chamber sizes, and what has to give when both are required.
Continue elsewhere in the register