The difference is immediately visible. Under D'Hondt and Sainte-Laguë, Party C receives one seat even though its vote total of 2,000 does not meet the proportional threshold of 3,600 votes per seat. The seat is awarded not because the math supports it but even though it does not.

 

Hare-Niemeyer produces a different result.

Each party's vote total is divided by the quota of 3,600.

Party A receives 2 full seats from its whole number result and wins the remaining seat by virtue of having the highest fractional remainder.

Party B receives 1 full seat from its whole number result and wins the remaining seat by virtue of having the second highest fractional remainder.

Party C, whose vote total does not meet the quota and whose fractional remainder is insufficient to claim a remaining seat, receives no seat.

The allocation is determined entirely by the mathematics - nothing more and nothing less.

 

The choice of method is not merely a technical one. It is a constitutional one, based directly on Article I, Section 2.

The People choose Members - individual people. Parties are mechanisms for presenting candidates. Parties are not themselves elected. Any allocation method that artificially inflates a party's seat count beyond what the voters' actual choices warrant is mathematically dishonest. It substitutes manipulation for the genuine will of the People.

This is not a charity event. This is an election.

 

The Hare-Niemeyer Method is the only allocation method that faithfully translates the People's actual votes into seats without putting its thumb on the scale for any party large or small. It is therefore the constitutionally appropriate method for seat allocation under the State-Wide Party-List Proportional Election System.

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9.5 Incomplete Slates and Vote Exhaustion

The Hare-Niemeyer method allocates seats based on the votes received by each party or candidate. However, a practical situation may arise where a party receives sufficient votes to warrant more seats than the number of candidates it has presented. In the most extreme case, an independent candidate - a party of one - may receive sufficient votes to warrant multiple seats while having only one person available to fill them.

 

In all such cases the principle is the same. A party can only fill seats for which it has presented candidates. Any votes beyond that threshold are exhausted - they cannot be redistributed or reallocated to other parties. The remaining seats are then allocated proportionally among the remaining parties using the Hare-Niemeyer method based on their actual vote totals.

 

This principle places a clear and transparent responsibility on both parties and voters. A party that chooses to present fewer candidates than the number of seats available in their state does so knowingly and deliberately. A voter who chooses to support such a party does so with full knowledge of that party's slate. The rules of the system are published and transparent in advance. The consequences of choices made within those rules are the responsibility of those who made them.

 

A critic may argue that discarding exhausted votes and reallocating remaining seats among other parties produces a result that no longer purely reflects the will of the People - since the final allocation is based on a reduced vote pool rather than the total votes cast. This objection, while understandable, misplaces the responsibility. The system does not fail the voter. A party that presents an incomplete slate fails the voter by not providing sufficient candidates to translate their support into full representation. The system's rules are identical and transparent for every party and every voter. It is the party's choice - not the system's design - that produces the exhausted votes.

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9.6 Candidate Unavailability

Electoral systems must account for the practical reality that candidates may become unavailable - through death, illness, disqualification, or other circumstances - either before or after an election.

 

Where a candidate becomes unavailable before the election, the party that presented that candidate is permitted to replace them from their registered slate of candidates, provided the replacement is made within a defined deadline established prior to election day. This ensures that voters who have chosen to vote for that party are not disenfranchised by circumstances beyond their control. The party's slate, as amended, remains its binding commitment to the voters.

 

Where a candidate becomes unavailable after the election but before being seated, or during their term of service, the vacancy is filled by the next eligible candidate on that party's registered slate in order of ranking. This preserves the proportional outcome of the election without requiring a new election and without disturbing the will of the People as expressed in the original vote.

 

Where an independent candidate - a party of one - becomes unavailable after winning a seat, no party slate exists from which to draw a replacement. In such cases a special election shall be held to fill the vacancy, conducted under the same State-Wide Party-List Proportional Election System rules as the original election.

 

In all cases the integrity of the voter's original choice is the governing principle. The system exists to translate the will of the People into representation - and that translation must be protected even when individual circumstances intervene.

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