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

One person, One vote only IN your state

[micahfk]

Of course, what the article fails to mention is that your vote is only worth so much depending on what state you live in. Remember, in the US, we elect through the electoral college which generally means (technically, the electors do not have to vote by what the people vote with an exception of a few states) your vote is counted within the state and not within the nation. So, how much is your vote worth? At the extreme ends, Wyoming, which has the least number of people for a state gets 3 electoral votes for about 500,000 people (0.0006%), whereas California has 55 for 38 million people (0.00001%).

Therefore, for every 1 vote for a Republican in Wyoming, 60 votes for a Democrat in California are needed to cancel each other out. And this mathematician wants to make it more "fair" by giving more votes to smaller states?