Quota method

Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results The quota or divide-and-rank methods make up a category of apportionment rules, i.e. algorithms for allocating seats in a legislative body among multiple groups (e.g. parties or federal states).

The quota methods begin by calculating an entitlement (basic number of seats) for each party, by dividing their vote totals by an electoral quota (a fixed number of votes needed to win a seat, as a unit).

[1] Despite their intuitive definition, quota methods are generally disfavored by social choice theorists as a result of apportionment paradoxes.

[1][3] In particular, the largest remainder methods exhibit the no-show paradox, i.e. voting for a party can cause it to lose seats.

Largest remainder methods produces similar results to single transferable vote or the quota Borda system, where voters organize themselves into solid coalitions.

The single transferable vote or the quota Borda systembehave like the largest-remainders method when voters all behave like strict partisans (i.e. only mark preferences for candidates of one party).

[6] A party hoping to win multiple seats sees fewer votes captured by a single popular candidate when the quota is small.