Subject: message from Dick Engstrom
From: Rick Hasen
Date: 3/10/2006, 1:11 PM
To: election-law



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: basis for apportionment
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:10:16 -0600
From: Richard L Engstrom <rengstro@uno.edu>
To: David Lublin <dlublin@american.edu>, "Smith, Brad" <BSmith@law.capital.edu>
CC: election-law <election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>, owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
References: <OF0E0F1A5C.8A3F098A-ON8525712D.005A5419-8525712D.005DF2FA@american.edu>


     Just one caveat on what David reports on Australia.  The apportionment of seats for the Australian House of Representatives is based on state populations (with some deviation for the ACT and Northern Territory).  But the divisions (districts) themselves are based on registered voters.  No division is to have more than a 10% deviation from the average in registration for the state, and the projected + or - 3.5% projection David mention's is also based on registration.  The initial apportionment however is based on population. 
 
Dick Engstrom, University of New Orleans
 
 
 
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of David Lublin
Sent: Fri 3/10/2006 11:02 AM
To: Smith, Brad
Cc: election-law; owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: basis for apportionment


Apportionment bases vary dramatically:

The U.S. does it on the basis of total population (including below voting-age and non-citizen).

Spain allocates seats to provinces based on total legal population but is malapportioned because all provinces are given two seats (except Ceuta and Melilla which each get only one seat) before the remaining seats are allocated (and the original two seats are not taken into account as part of this allocation).  Spain's regional parliaments are also often malapportioned.  Catalonia overrepresents its rural regions--enough so that the will of the voters was effectively reversed in one election.  The Basque Country give each of its three historic provinces an equal number of seats even though Bizkaia has around 4 times as many voters/seat as Gipuzkoa.

Switzerland allocates seats in the National Council (Nationalrat/Conseil national) on the basis of the population using the largest remainder formula (with each canton or half-canton guaranteed at least one seat).  Each canton has two seats and each half-canton has one seat in the Council of States (Conseil d'Etat).

Lithuania's electoral law says: "For the organisation and conduct of elections, the territory of the Republic of Lithuania shall be divided into 71 single-member constituencies, taking into consideration the number of inhabitants in the constituency, the division of the territory of the Republic of Lithuania into single-member constituencies during previous elections to the Seimas, and the administrative-territorial division of the Republic of Lithuania. A constituency shall be formed from polling districts which have common boundaries. The number of voters in constituencies must be from 0.9 to 1.1 of the average number of voters in all single-member constituencies."

Australia draws on the basis of voters but make future, rather than current, voter equality the goal.  Australia draws its electoral boundaries with the goal of making sure that no electorate will vary more than 3.5% from the state mean 3.5 years into the apportionment.  Australian states historically overrepresented rural areas; I believe Western Australia still does.  For more information, see "Australian Politics and Government" by Moon and Sharman.

New Zealand draws on the basis of the number of people on the electoral rolls with the requirement of keeping variation within 5%.  The South Island is guaranteed 16 seats.  The number of South Island electors divided by 16 determines the quota which is then used to determine the number of North Island seats.  The number of electors on the Maori roll divided by the quota determines the number of Maori seats.  (There are also proportional top-up seats).

For information on the UK, see "The Boundary Commissions" by Rossiter, Johnston and Pattie or "From Votes to Seats" by Johnston, Pattie, Dowling and Rossiter.  Scotland used to be significantly overrepresented at Westminister but is no longer (part of the changes with devolution).  Wales is still overrepresented (maybe because the Welsh Assembly has no taxation powers?) as is Northern Ireland.  Scotland guarantees Orkney and Shetland each their own seat in the Scottish parliament (which uses MMP as does the Welsh Assembly).

For information on the Nordic Countries, see Grofman and Lijphart's "The Evolution of Party Systems in the Nordic Countries."

For information on Canada, see "Commissioned Ridings" by John Courtney.  Canada is somewhat malapportioned with all provinces except Ontario and Alberta (I believe) receiving more seats than their population merits due to various constitutional guarantees (Quebec gets at least 75 seats; there is also the senatorial clause that says provinces must get as many MPs as senators).  I believe the Maritime provinces are the greatest beneficiaries.

Good luck,

David Lublin
Associate Professor
Department of Government
School of Public Affairs
American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016
http://www.american.edu/dlublin/index.html






"Smith, Brad" <BSmith@law.capital.edu>
Sent by: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu

03/10/2006 10:48 AM

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Subject
 basis for apportionment







The United States uses population as the basis of apportionment.  My impression is that so do most other countries that aim toward some type of one person/one vote standard.  Does anyone know, however, of any countries that use some other basis for apportionment equality, such as the number of eligible voters, number of citizens, number of enrolled voters, number of adults, or some similar number?
 
Bradley A. Smith
Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
Columbus, Ohio
  

-- 
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org