Apportionment

Definition

•Apportionment is a fair division method

used to divide a whole (identical, indivisible
objects) into various parts or among units
which may be entitled to unequal shares.
Most Common Apportionment Problem.
• Determining the number of representatives a state
(city or province) can have in the legislative
department is the most known apportionment
problem.
• With this kind of problem, the state (city or province)
is considered as the participant and the seats in the
legislative department are the object to be divided
among the participant.
Most Common Apportionment Problem.
• The first who tried to apportion the House of
Representatives itself is the United States Constitution. Since
1790, numerous methods have been utilized to resolve how
many voters would be embodied by each member of the
House.
• Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were the first to
create methods to be used.
Methods of Apportionment
• Following each decennial census, the seats of the House of
Representatives are reapportioned among the states according to
their population.
• There several different methods of apportionment each of which
allocates seats in a slightly different way.
• The different methods are:
1. The Hamilton/Vinton/Hare–Niemeyer Method
2. The Jefferson Method
3. The Adams Method
4. The Webster Method
5. The Huntington-Hill Method
Hamilton Method
• The Hamilton method of apportionment is actually a largest-
remainder method which uses the Hare Quota.
(The Hare quota, also known as the simple quota, is the simplest
quota that can be used in elections held under the Single Transferable Vote
(STV) system. In an STV election a candidate who reaches the quota is
elected while any votes a candidate receives above the quota are transferred
to another candidate. The Hare quota was devised by Thomas Hare, one of
the earliest supporters of STV).
• It is named after Alexander Hamilton, who invented the largest-
remainder method in 1792.
• It was first adopted to apportion the U.S. House of Representatives every
ten years between 1852 and 1900.
Modified Divisor
• In the case that the final assigned numbers do not match the total
seats to be assigned, you must choose another divisor.
• This divisor is called a modified divisor (MD) with the intent of
picking a divisor that results in the appropriate number of seats being
assigned.
• The MD is chosen at random.
• If your total number of seats is too high, then choose a higher divisor.
• If your total number of assigned seats is too low, choose a lower
divisor.
The Adams Method
• The Adams method rounds up the quotients obtained after dividing
the population with the standard divisor. If the allocations obtained
are in excess of the actual number of seats to be allocated, then the
standard divisor is modified and the procedure is repeated.
STATE POPULATION QUOTIENT 1ST QUOTIENT FINAL
(USING ALLOCATION (MODIFIED ALLOCATION
STANDARD (ROUND UP) DIVISOR = 650)
DIVISOR=594.1)
A 2560 4.31 5 3.94 4

B 3315 5.58 6 5.1 6

C 995 1.67 2 1.53 2

D 5012 8.44 9 7.71 8

TOTAL = 20 22 20
SEATS
Webster Method
• Webster's Method of Apportionment is a method proposed and
adopted by the House.
• It states that apportioning should be accomplished through the
selection of a divisor such that the ultimate traditionally-rounded
quotas will sum to the exact number of seats to be assigned.
Apportionment Paradoxes
❖Alabama Paradox
- an increase in the total number of items to be apportioned
results in the loss of an item for a group
❖ Population Paradox
- Group A loses items to Group B, even though the population of
group A grew at a faster rate than that of group B
❖ New States Paradox
- The addition of a new group changes the apportionments of
other methods.