Question

Now imagine that the votes for each party shown in Table 1 are the same, but that they are for a district where 10 candidates are elected using a highest averages system to allocate seats. This means that the votes parties receive are divided by a series of numbers to give quotients. This country uses the d’Hondt method (the divisors are 1, 2, 3, 4,…). Seats are allocated to the party with the largest quotient, then the second largest, then the third largest… until all of the seats have been allocated.

Table 2

	Party A	Party B	Party C	Party D	Party E	Party F	Total
Votes	38000	20800	19300	14500	5750	1650	100,000
1	38000	20800	19300	14500	5750	1650
2	19000	10400	9650	7250	2875	825
3	12666.7	6933.3	6433.3	4833.3	1916.7	550
4	9500	5200	4825	3625	1437.5	412.5
5	7600	4160	3860	2900	1150	330
Total Seats							10

1. In the district described in Table 2, how many total seats does Party A win?

2. How many total seats does Party E win?

Answer 1

	Party A	Party B	Party C	Party D	Party E	Party F
Votes	38000	20800	19300	14500	5750	1650	100,000
1	38000	20800	19300	14500	5750	1650
2	19000	10400	9650	7250	2875	825
3	12666.7	6933.3	6433.3	4833.3	1916.7	550
4	9500	5200	4825	3625	1437.5	412.5
5	7600	4160	3860	2900	1150	330
Total Seats							10

The top 10 values in the table are marked in bold. These represent the number of seats won by a party.

1. Party A won 5 seats

2. Party E won 0 seats