You wrote: I understand that LR/Hamilton may lead to the Alabama paradox and people may dislike LR/Hamilton because of this. But I think LR/ Hamilton is quite proportional and unbiased.
I reply: Hamilton is unbiased, as is Webster. But though Hamilton doesn't systematically deviate from proportionality so as to favor large or small states, it sporadically and randomly deviates from proportionality, in an unbiased way. You continued: Are there other reasons why LR/Hamilton is not favoured? I reply: That's reason enough. Two kinds of nonmonotonicity: Population nonmonotonicity and House-size nonmonotonicitly. Your state can lose a seat because of a population change favoring your state with respect to the others, or because of an increase in the House's total number of seats. You continued: SL/Webster is close to LR/Hamilton I reply: Close in the sense of being unbiased. You continued: and avoids the Alabama paradox, but LR/Hamilton might still be considered more exact in providing proportionality. I reply: Why? Hamilton's nonmonotonicity paradoxes are instances of unproportionality. And, as I said, Webster, and only Webster has the transfer property that I described. For example, given a Hamilton seat allocation, it could well be, due to Hamilton's random caprice, that if we take a seat from one state, and give it to another state, that seat transfer could reduce the factor by which those two states' votes per seat differ. Showing that the Hamilton allocation was suboptimal and need of improvement. Milke Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ Talk now to your Hotmail contacts with Windows Live Messenger. http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme0020000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://get.live.com/messenger/overview ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info