Module 9.

APPORTIONMENT and VOTING

Good day, learner! I hope that you had understood the images and imaginings of graph theory. The
ideas that you had learned from that lesson is very vital to understanding your journey from one goal
to the other. This time, you are going to learn the science of mathematics of apportionment. This is
the final lesson before your pre-finals. The knowledge of voting and apportionment is essential for
your understanding of elections.

Basic Terminologies

1. Rounding-off, rounding-down, and rounding-up

a. Rounding - off – decimal representation of a number to the nearest whole number. For instance, 5.345 is rounded -
off to 5 and 6.55 is rounded - off to 7. If the starting decimal is from 0 − 4, round down. If the starting decimal is from 5 − 9,
round up.
b. Rounding - down – decimal representation of a number is rounded - down to the lower whole number. For example,
4.231 is rounded - down to 4, and 7.989 is rounded - down to 7.
c. Rounding - up – decimal representation of a number is rounded - up to the nearest higher whole number. For instance,
4.123 is rounded - up to 5, and 6.995 is rounded - up to 7.

2. Hill’s geometric mean of a number. If 𝒏 is a number, then the Hill’s geometric mean (HGM) of 𝒏 𝑖𝑠 √𝒏(𝒏 + 𝟏). For
instance, the Hill’s geometric mean of 7 is
𝐻𝐺𝑀 = √𝒏(𝒏 + 𝟏) = √7(7 + 1) = √(7(8) ) = √56 = 7.483315
Apportionment
Basically, apportionment means allocating resources to a given demand. Resources may come in the form of available
personnel for certain tasks like assigning teachers to different academic department relief foods to areas affected by disasters, or
distribution of troops to certain groups according to peace and order conditions.
In the Philippines, apportionment is used by the government to allocate seats or party representatives in a legislature,
like the Lower House/ Congress; also, apportionment is used to allocate funds on different regions based on population of tho se
regions from the central government.
In this regard, there are 5 methods in computing apportionments, namely:
a. Hamilton approach d. Webster method
b. Jefferson method e. The Huntington-Hill approach
c. Adams method
To illustrate how the Hamilton and Jefferson plans were used to calculate the number of representatives each state
should have, we will consider the fictitious country of Andromeda, with a population of 20,000 and five states. The population of
each state is given in the right side.

State Population
Apus 11,123
Libra 879
Draco 3,518
Cephus 1,563
Orion 2,917
Total 20,000

Andromeda’s constitution calls for 25 representatives to be chosen from these states. The number of representatives is
to be apportioned according to the states’ respective populations.

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 Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was an American statesman and one of the founders of the United States of America.
Under the Hamilton Approach, the total population of the country (20,000) is divided by the number of representatives (25). This
gives the number of citizens represented by each representatives, This number is called the standard divisor.

𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒐𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏
𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒐𝒓 =
𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏
For Andromeda, we have
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑜𝑟 =
𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
20,000
= 25
= 800
Now divide the population of each state by the standard divisor and round down to a whole number. For instance, both
15.1 and 15.9 would be rounded to 15. Each whole number is called a standard quota.

Standard Quota

The standard quota is the whole number part of the quotient of a population divided by the standard divisor.

State Population Quotient Standard Quota

11,123 13
Apus 11,123 = 13.904
800
879 1
Libra 879 = 1.099
800
3518 4
Draco 3,518 = 4.398
800
1563 1
Cephus 1,563 = 1.954
800
2917 3
Orions 2,917 = 3.646
800
Total 22

From the calculations given in the above table, the total number of representatives is 22, not 25 as required by
Andromeda’s constitution. When this happens, the Hamiltonian approach calls for revisiting the calculation of quotients and
assigning an additional representative to the state with the largest decimal remainder. This process is continued until the number
of representatives equals the number required by the constitution. For Andromeda, we have

State Population Quotient Standard Quota # of Rep

11,123
Apus 11,123 = 13.904 13 14
800
879
Libra 879 = 1.099 1 1
800
3518
Draco 3,518 = 4.398 4 4
800
1563
Cephus 1,563 = 1.954 1 2
800
2917
Orions 2,917 800
= 3.646 3 4
Total 22 25

Take Note:
Additional representatives are assigned according to the largest decimal and remainders. Because the sum of the
standard quotas came to ‘only 22 representatives, we must add three more representatives. The states with the three highest
decimal remainders are Cephus (1,954), Apus (13,904), and Orion (3,646). Thus each of these states gets an additional
representative.
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The Jefferson Method

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was also an American statesman and one of the founding fathers of the United States of
America. He also became the third president of USA and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

As we saw with the Hamilton approach, dividing by the standard divisor and then rounding down does not always yield
the correct number of representatives. In the previous example, we were three representatives short. The Jefferson approach
attempts to overcome this difficulty by using a modified standard divisor (Jefferson Divisor). This number is chosen by trial and
error, so that the sum of the standard quotas is equal to the total number of representatives. In a specific appointment calculation,
there may be more than one number that can serve as the modified standard divisor. For instance, in the following appointment
calculation shown, we have used 740 as our modified standard divisor. However, 741 can also be used as the modified standard
divisor.

State Population Quotient # of Rep

11,123
Apus 11,123 = 15.031 15
740
879
Libra 879 = 1.188 1
740
3518
Draco 3,518 = 4.754 4
740
1563
Cephus 1,563 = 2.112 2
740
2917
Orions 2,917 = 3.942 3
740
Total 25
The table below shows how the results of the Hamilton and Jefferson apportionment methods differ, note that each
method assigns a different number of representatives to certain states.

Hamilton
State Population Jefferson Approach
Approach
Apus 11,123 14 15
Libra 879 1 1
Draco 3,518 4 4
Cephus 1,563 2 2
Orions 2,917 4 3
25 25

Although we have applied apportionment to allocating representatives to congress, there are many other applications of
apportionment. For instance,
• nurses can be assigned to hospitals according to the number of patients requiring care;
• police officers can be assigned to precincts based on the number of reported crimes;
• math classes can be scheduled based on student demand for those

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Check your progress:

Using Hamilton approach, 50 new nurses are to be assigned in the following hospitals with their corresponding patient
capacity:

Standard
State Population Quotient # of Rep
Quota
Mister X 3 Hospital 5,200 (3) (9)
Laughter Medicine
2,500 (4) (10)
Hospital
Pangsosyal Center for
300 (5) (11)
The Rich
Plantitos Sentro ng
1,200 (6) (12)
Medisina
Pills and Promises 3,200 (7) (13)
Total (8) 50

1. What is the total population?

2. What is the standard divisor?
14. What is the HGM of 10?
15-17. What are the three estimation techniques discussed?

Answers:
1. 12,400 6. 4 11. 1
2. 248 7. 12 12. 5
3. 20.968 ~ 20 8. 47 13. 13
4.10.081 ~ 10 9. 21 14. 10.49
5. 1.21 ~ 1 10. 10 15.-17.?

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Prof. Ninfa Sua – Sotomil
Cell No: 09171022328
Tel No: 5035955
sotomil_ninfas@wit.edu.ph