Editing Highest averages method (section)

== History ==

Divisor methods were first invented by [[Thomas Jefferson]] to comply with a [[Constitution of the United States|constitutional]] requirement, that states have at most one representative per 30,000 people. His solution was to divide each state's population by 30,000 before rounding down.<ref name="Balinski-1982" />{{Rp||page=20}}

Apportionment would become a major topic of debate in Congress, especially after the discovery of [[Apportionment paradox|pathologies]] in many superficially-reasonable rounding rules.<ref name="Balinski-1982" />{{Rp||page=20}} Similar debates would appear in Europe after the adoption of [[proportional representation]], typically as a result of large parties attempting to introduce [[Electoral threshold|thresholds]] and other [[barriers to entry]] for small parties.<ref name="Pukelsheim-2017-0" /> Such apportionments often have substantial consequences, as in the [[1870 United States census|1870 reapportionment]], when Congress used an ad-hoc apportionment to favor [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] states.<ref name="Argersinger-2012" /> Had each state's electoral vote total been exactly equal to [[Entitlement (fair division)|its entitlement]], or had Congress used [[Webster method|Webster's method]] or a [[largest remainders method]] (as it had since 1840), the [[1876 United States presidential election|1876 election]] would have gone to [[Samuel J. Tilden|Tilden]] instead of [[Rutherford B. Hayes|Hayes]].<ref name="Argersinger-2012" /><ref name="Caulfield-2012" /><ref name="Balinski-1982" />{{Rp||page=3, 37}}