Tweaking The Math Behind Political Representation

mlimber writes "Nature magazine's news section has an interesting story about how the seats in the US House of Representatives should be divided up. The problem is that the population isn't evenly divided by the number of seats in the House (435). So how should one allocate the fractional parts? The current method tends to favor big states, while a recent proposal by a mathematician is for what he calls a 'minimally unfair' allotment. He is predicting 'one person, one vote' challenges on this topic in the near future."

Comments

Correction

[sharp-bang]

The current method doesn't favor big states. FTA, "the current method has an inherent bias towards giving small states a boost up".

Re:Solving the wrong problem

[jsprat]

(...) they would by definition be reflecting the people who voted for them.

Not necessarily. Gerrymandering is the art of changing the boundaries to gain an advantage. In a simple way, this image shows an even distribution redivided to give one party the advantage.