Electoral Inequity

Ideally, a representative democracy awards a genuine vote to each adult. We study whether this applies in competitive democracies with an election model combining district appor- tionment and proportional representation (PR). Four classic seat allocation rules, including d'Hondt (1882), are reframed as Dutch auctions, allowing important properties to be easily de- rived. The pros and cons of these methods are stated in terms of economic inequality; Sainte- Laguë (1910)'s is shown to best carry the genuine vote ideal, both for elections and for appor- tionment. We next expound the interplay between these two components in generating an inequitable treatment of voters/citizens and develop the scale-free index of inequity best fit- ted to their concern. We apply it to 40 countries for the apportionment of electoral districts. The long run evolution in a few countries is contrasted. Lastly, we compute the same inequity index for recent parliamentary elections in 80 countries, finding that the majority system mis- treats electors, thus putting a “price” on government stability