Apportionment, another math in Politics.
Apportionment is the process, done every 10 years after the census, of giving a share of the total 435 Representatives to each of the 50 States. Constitutionally, the only requirements are that each State must have at least one Rep, and there can't be more than one Rep per 30,000 people. Alexander Hamilton invented the first equation used to apportion US Representatives (at least, he gets credit for it). As you can see here, http://w3.fiu.edu/math/html/gazzette/fall96.htm, it's bad. We've used other methods, they were all flawed. In 1920s things started getting pretty darn contentious over apportionment. There were tiny districts and huge districts, and it was quite imbalanced. Later, the Supreme Court actually ruled that the standard deviation of the populations of the districts in one State must be minimal (1). In 1929, Congress gave orders to the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) to investigate the best way to apportion Representatives, mathematically speaking. Well, NAS, not to be hasty, took over a decade to complete their research. In 1941, the NAS got back to Congress with five possible solutions. Congress didn't take long in deciding that the "Method of the Harmonic Mean" was fairest (2), and we've been using that method ever since. Like apportionment, Voting systems are mathematically complex notions, where a seemingly reasonable solution. making the winner the person who gets the most votes) is actually a bad thing. Here is where I should have a list of all Presidents who would not have won with a more sophisticated system. Lincoln would have lost == No or delayed Civil War Clinton would have lost (the 1st time) Bush the Second would have lost Doesn't really matter where you are on the political spectrum, I imagine, someone you don't like got elected with primitive voting systems. (*) Can you imagine today's Supreme Court recognizing anything to do with statistics? (2) I agree. It's a nice thing. There is one flaw, though, unrelated to the method, but the cap. The 2000 apportionment would have been fairer (by measurement of the standard deviation of all districts) with only 432 Reps instead of 435. Oh well. Sorry, I might have been able to do something about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product, an official confirmation of any transaction, or as an official statement of Lehman Brothers. Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. Therefore, we do not represent that this information is complete or accurate and it should not be relied upon as such. All information is subject to change without notice.
