A New Method of Apportionment of Representatives

Abstract

The only provisions of the United States Constitution which bear on the present problem of apportionment are the following: "Repre? sentatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." "The enumeration shall be made within . . . every . . . term of ten years." "The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000, but each state shall have at least one representative." Since fractional representation appears to be out of the question, the problem is how to distribute any given total number (N) of repre? sentatives among the several states in proportion to their populations "as nearly as may be." In other words, considering first the case of two states, the problem is how to approximate most closely to the condition expressed by the proportion A : B :: a : b,