Hare quota

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The Hare quota (sometimes called the simple, ideal, or Hamilton quota) is the number of voters represented by each legislator in an idealized system of proportional representation where every vote is used to elect someone. The Hare quota is equal to the number of votes divided by the number of seats.

The Hare quota was used in Thomas Hare's proposal for a single transferable vote system and can still be used for this purpose, though the Droop quota is used for most STV elections today. The Hare quota is often used to set electoral thresholds and to calculate apportionments under party-list proportional representation when using the largest remainder method. In such cases, the Hare quota gives unbiased apportionments that do not favor either large or small parties.^[1] However, unlike Droop's quota, the Hare quota does not guarantee a party with a majority of votes in the district will win at least half the seats.^[2]

The quota was first proposed by Alexander Hamilton for use in United States congressional apportionment, as part of what is now called Hamilton's method.^[3]