Florida Democratic Party
Explanation of Method for Allocating State Committee Members to Counties
Pursuant to the proposed new Bylaws of the Florida Democratic Party (Article II, Section 2.1.1),
The State Executive Committee (State Committee) shall consist of a base number that ensures each
county is represented by a minimum of two members (one state committeeman and one state
committeewoman). This minimum allocation requirement distributes 134 members among the counties
(67 counties x 2 = 134).
Added to the base allocation is each county’s Democratic Executive Committee Chair and Vice Chair.
This adds another 134 members among the counties (67 counties x 2 = 134).
In addition, 150 members are allocated among the counties based on a formula that gives equal weight to
a county’s Democratic registration as of January 1, 20151, and to its Democratic performance in the most
recent gubernatorial election2. The result of that calculation is expressed mathematically as shown below
and becomes the “Allocation Factor” (AF) for each county.
AF =
1 ! CDR CDVG $
+
#
&
2 " SDR TDVG %
CRD = County Democratic Registration
SRD = State Democratic Registration
CDVG = County Democratic Vote for Governor
TDVG = Total Democratic Vote for Governor
To allocate the State Committee member positions, the FDP must use a rounding method to determine
which counties will receive X number of additional members. Because there are a fixed number of
positions (150), the preferred rounding method used is known as the “Huntington-Hill Method of Equal
Proportions.” This calculation uses the geometric mean as a method for rounding to a fixed number.
The Huntington-Hill method was developed around 1911. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted
this method in 1941 as its system for apportioning the set number of 435 House members to the states.
This is also the method used to apportion members of the Democratic National Committee to the states.
The method of equal proportions is expressed mathematically as follows:
AF x M = PV
(AF = Allocation Factor; M = Multiplier; PV = Priority Value)
The Multiplier (M) is a number that is one divided by the geometric mean. The geometric mean is the
square root of two numbers3 and is expressed mathematically as:
M = 1 ÷ (√n,(n-1))
As the method for rounding to a fixed number, the Huntington-Hill method assigns member positions
based on a “Priority Value” (PV) -- the result of the calculation shown above. For the FDP’s allocation of
the additional 150 state committee members, the priority value is determined by multiplying the
“Allocation Factor” of a county by the “multiplier” (M), based on the potential maximum number of
additional positions that a county could be allocated. In other words, the method of equal proportions
1
2
The registration figures from January 1, 2015, are from the monthly voter registration report released by the Florida Division
of Elections. The reported registration number includes all registered active and inactive voters up to 12/31/2014. Based on voting results by county as certified by the Florida Division of Elections. 3
For this purpose, the geometric mean is the square root of N additional members, and N-1 additional members. requires that priority values be computed for (1) each county and (2) the total number of additional state
committee members a county could receive.
Because Broward has the highest number of registered Democrats and had the largest number of
Democratic votes for governor, it was assumed that Broward is the county to use for calculating the
priority value. When looking at allocating the maximum number of additional members to counties, the
result shows that the most number of additional members a county will receive is 27. As a result, priority
values were computed for the 67 counties based on allocating as many as 27 members per county.
Once the priority values for each county and the possible member allocations are calculated, the
Huntington-Hill method is then used to rank the allocation of members starting with assignment of the
first member position through the assignment of all 150 members. Based on the priority value, this
ranking determines which counties are entitled to one additional member, which counties are entitled to
two additional members, and so on4.
Each county’s allocation of State Committee members is the total of the following categories:
Base State Committee Members
DEC Chair and Vice Chair
Share of 150 additional members
COUNTY TOTAL
2
+2
+x
xx
State Total
State Total
State Total
STATE TOTAL
134
+134
+150
418
Members allocated to the counties will represent approximately 83% of the total possible votes on the
State Committee.
November 5, 2015
4
For this allocation of the additional State Committee members based on the Huntington-Hill method, counties with a priority
value greater than .0044521 received additional members. For example, a county might have a priority value of .004648 for
one additional member and a priority value of .004301 for two additional members. In this example, the one additional priority
value is greater than .0044521, so the county would gain an additional member, but the two additional priority value is less
than .0044521, so the county would not be entitled to two additional members.