Warren wrote: I am highly dubious of both Ossipoff's "moral argument" and of my own.
I think really, any such arguments have to be backed up by some considerably deeper arguments about maximizing summed utility in some models, and at their present level of development are little more than intuitive ranting. I reply: But isn't equal representation expectation for everyone the obvious goal of apportionment? The fact that something is intuitively obvious doesn't always mean that it's incorrect. Some things really are simple, clear, and obvious. Warren, be sure that you aren't making something simple into something complicated. Warren continued: Ossipoff said of Olson's list: >Of the standards that you listed, I prefer the one that minimizes the >greatest under-representation. --that standard leads exactly to Adam's method. However... I do not think Ossipoff really thinks Adams is best! I reply: Immediately after the posting in which I said I liked minmax under-representation, I posted my retraction of that. I pointed out that that standard would preferentiallly round-up small states, over-representing small states. I said that I prefer the standard of equal representation expectation for all, and that I'm sticking with Webster, WW, CW, and AR, because they achieve that. Mike Ossipoff ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
