Apportionment: Webster's Method

Daniel Webster proposed his apportionment method in 1832.It was adopted by the Congress in 1842, and then replaced by Alexander Hamilton's in 1852. It was again adopted in 1901 and reconfirmed in 1911. Finally, it was replaced by Huntington-Hill's method in 1941.

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The given total number of seats (23 in the applet) is to be apportioned between several (3 at the ouset) states proportionally to their populations. To accomplish that task according to Webster,

1. Compute the divisor D = (Total population)/(Number of seats)
2. Modify D by an amount d, that could be negative, such that when state allocations {(State population)/(D + d)} are rounded in the customary manner, they add up to the exact number of seats.

Copyright © 1996-2008 Alexander Bogomolny