The applet helps you learn and practice with the five apportionment methods: Hamilton's, Jefferson's, Adams', Webster's and Huntington-Hill. Start with the Create Table tab.
This is the only tab where you can specify the number of states (and, if you wish, their names), the number of seats to be allocated to state representatives and the population of each state. To make a cell in the Population column editable, place it into the focus (by using the navigational keys) and pressing F2 or by double clicking inside the cell. To navigate away from a cell, press Enter or any of the navigational keys.
The Compute button at the lower right corner of the applet is initially disabled. It becomes enabled after all the population data have been entered. Before leaving the tab, you have to press the Compute button. This fills the Standard Quota column and completes the Population column with the Total and the Standard Divisor.
The data from this table will be automatically transferred to the tables under other tabs to be used by specific apportionment methods.
The table is filled automatically with all the preliminary data needed to execute Hamilton's method of apportionment. In particular, when you switch to the tab, the number of surplus seats has been computed. All that remains is to distribute the surplus seats according to Hamilton's method. You do that by choosing the seats one at a time at the combobox in the lower right corner of applet.
The tabs for the three methods have the same structure. The table consists of 5 columns, of which the first three have been inherited from the Create Table tab. The fourth and the fifth columns are automatically filled depending on the value of the Modified Divisor defined at the bottom of the applet.
The table for the Huntington-Hill method has six columns, the first four defined as under all the Jefferson's, Adams' or Webster's methods tabs. The fourth shows the cutoff value for each of the Modified Quotas; the fifth column is automatically filled with seat allocation.
In all 4 methods that employ a divisor to evaluate a population equivalent for a single seat, the seat allocation is only correct when the total of seats in the last column adds up to the available number of seats.
The last tab combines the results of all five methods as they become available. You have to visit the tabs of the methods you wish to compare for a particular population data, to make it available under the comparison tab.
Here is the applet.