On multi-level apportionment

Abstract Apportionment refers to the well-studied problem of allocating legislative seats among parties or groups with different entitlements. We present a multi-level generalization of apportionment where the groups form a hierarchical structure, which gives rise to stronger versions of the upper and lower quota notions. We show that running Adams’ method level-by-level satisfies upper quota, while running Jefferson’s method or the quota method level-by-level guarantees lower quota. Moreover, we prove that both quota notions can always be fulfilled simultaneously.