Editing Quota method (section)

==Quotas==
{{Main|Electoral quota}}
There are several possible choices for the [[electoral quota]]. The choice of quota affects the properties of the corresponding largest remainder method, and particularly the [[seat bias]]. Smaller quotas allow small parties to pick up seats, while larger quotas leave behind more votes. A somewhat counterintuitive result of this is that a ''larger'' quota will always be more favorable to ''smaller'' parties.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gallagher |first=Michael |date=1992 |title=Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/194023 |journal=British Journal of Political Science |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=469–496 |doi=10.1017/S0007123400006499 |jstor=194023 |issn=0007-1234}}</ref> A party hoping to win multiple seats sees fewer votes captured by a single popular candidate when the quota is small.

The two most common quotas are the [[Hare quota]] and the [[Droop quota]]. The use of a particular quota with one of the largest remainder methods is often abbreviated as "LR-[quota name]", such as "LR-Droop".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gallagher |first1=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Igdj1P4vBwMC |title=The Politics of Electoral Systems |last2=Mitchell |first2=Paul |date=2005-09-15 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-153151-4 |language=en}}</ref>

The Hare (or simple) quota is defined as follows:

: <math>\frac{\text{total votes}}{\text{total seats}}</math>

LR-Hare is sometimes called Hamilton's method, named after [[Alexander Hamilton]], who devised the method in 1792.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Eerik Lagerspetz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RNcLCwAAQBAJ&q=alexander+hamilton+invented+the+largest+remainder+method&pg=PA130 |title=Social Choice and Democratic Values |date=26 November 2015 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319232614 |series=Studies in Choice and Welfare |access-date=2017-08-17}}</ref>

The [[Droop quota]] is given by:

: <math>\frac{\text{total votes}}{\text{total seats}+1}</math>

and is applied to elections in [[South Africa]].{{Cn|date=August 2024}}

The Hare quota is more generous to less-popular parties and the Droop quota to more-popular parties. Specifically, the Hare quota is [[Unbiased estimate|''unbiased'']] in the number of seats it hands out, and so is more proportional than the Droop quota (which tends to give more seats to larger parties). The Hare suffers the disproportionality that it sometimes allocates a majority of seats to a party with less than a majority of votes in a district.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Humphreys |title=Proportional Representation |year=1911 |pages=138}}</ref>