Are apportionment academics related to voting-system academics?
You have probably noticed a certain cluelessness about voting-system
academics. Ive been checking out some apportionment writing on the
Internet, and apparently academics who write about apportionment share that
cluelessness.
The emphasis seems to be on two-state transfer properties. Youre not going
to believe this, but it never seems to occur to academic authors that maybe
equal representation expectation could be a good thing, or that theres
anything wrong with systematically giving more s/q to states at one end of
the population-size spectrum.
Alright, I admit that that conclusion is based on a limited look at their
writing. But if academic interest in equal representation expectation is
difficult to find, surely that says something unflattering.
Sure, the pair transfer properties sound plausible enough, if, by whatever
standard, no two states could be closer. But what would you say about
someone who scrutinizes transfer properties, seemingly ignoring the fact
that its theoretically and empirically obvious that Hills method
systematically gives more seats per quota to the smaller states? I mean,
what kind of a person must that academic be? A bumbling comic character like
Jerry Lewiss Nutty Professor? Again, the term head-up-the-ass suggests
itself.
The Constitution says that seats should be given according to population,
and this is interpreted to mean proportional to population. Systematically
giving more s/q to smaller states (or bigger states) is obviously the most
unfair violation of that proportionality requirement.
As you know from single-winner methods, all criteria sound plausible. But
are the transfer properties so plausible as to justify systematic s/q
disparity with respect to population? Someone has seriously lost track
of the point of proportional apportionment.
Webster is the divisor method that gives equal representation expectation
for everyone, disregarding the effects of a non-uniform state-size
probability distribution. Webster is the intrinsically unbiased divisor
method, even if something extrinsic like the probability distribution could
cause measured bias.
That can be shown as I described earlier. When I found out about my
Bias-Free fallacy, I set out to find the intrinsically unbiased divisor
method. Write expressions for the total number of quotas possessed, and the
total number of seats received, by the states in a some particular cycle,
between two whole numbers of Hare quotas, such as the set of states
possessing between 4 and 5 Hare quotas. Set those two expressions equal, and
solve for the rounding point between those integers.
When I did that, I got (a+b)/2, which is a + .5 Thats Webster s method.
Why doesnt it occur to the bumbling, comic, clueless, head-up-the-ass nutty
professors that it might be desirable for everyone to have equal
representation expectation? And that theres something seriously wrong when
residents of smaller states systematically receive more representation than
residents of large states?
Ive suggested that measured bias caused by the distribution isnt unfair in
the sense that measured bias caused by the method is unfair. If thats
correct, then Webster could be all we need.
But it could be desirable to actually get rid of measured bias, whatever its
cause, and thats why I, and then Warren, have been looking at ways of doing
that. Ive proposed three such methods, and have named them Weighted
Webster, Cycle-Webster, and Adjusted-Rounding.
Getting back to transfer properties, of course Webster has one.
Mike Ossipoff
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