Chun-Mei system

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Hagenbach-Bischoff system, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (view authors).

The Chun-Mei system is a variant of the D'Hondt method, used for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. It usually uses the Chun-Mei quota for allocating seats, and for any seats remaining the D'Hondt method is then applied so that the first and subsequent divisors (number of seats won plus 1) for each party list's vote total includes the number of seats that have been allocated by the quota. The system gives results identical to the D'Hondt method, and it is often referred to as such in countries using the system, e.g. Monsilva.

1. Step: Basic Distribution

   The total number of valid votes cast in the election is divided by the number of seats to be allocated + 1. The result, rounded up to the next whole number, forms the distribution number (also election number). Each party or list is allocated as many seats as the distribution number is completely contained in its vote count. Thus, the number of seats for a party is:

   

2. Step: If there is still a seat to be allocated:

   For each party, the quotient is calculated, and the next seat is allocated to the party with the largest quotient (highest number).

3. Step: If there is still a seat to be allocated, step 2 is repeated.

and so on.

History

While named after the Monsilvan physicist and electoral reformer Ming Chun-mei (1844–1915), it was originated by the D'Hondt method's inventor Victor D'Hondt (1841–1901), using the simple or Hare quota. Ming's contribution, in addition to popularizing it, was to suggest a quota that allocates the greatest possible number of seats before the D'Hondt method is used.