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Estonian Math Competitions

Estonia algebra

Problem

There are lists of candidates taking part in elections. Let be the total number of votes given for the candidates of the th list. There are seats in the representative assembly.

Anna proposes the following system for delivering mandates: For each list, one computes a reference number where is the number of mandates already given to the th list (initially , i.e., the reference number of each list equals its number of votes). On every step ( times in total), one chooses the list with the greatest reference number (if several lists share the first place, one of them is chosen randomly) and adds one mandate to this list, after which the reference number of this list is recomputed.

Bert's idea for delivering mandates is to multiply the number of votes of every list by where , whereby fractional results are rounded downwards. As rounding may cause some seats to be undelivered, he proposes multiplying all numbers of votes of the lists by some suitable coefficient , so that the number of mandates given to the th list would be where .

Prove that if such coefficient exists then Anna's and Bert's methods lead to the same distribution of mandates.
Solution
Let the total number of mandates given to the th list be in the case of Bert's method and in the case of Anna's method. Suppose that these methods result in different distribution of mandates. As the sum of numbers of mandates must be the same, we must have for some and for some . As the numbers of mandates are integers, we have and .

Consider the situation in the case of Anna's method immediately after the th list having obtained its last mandate. Before obtaining the last mandate, the th list had mandates and reference number ,

while the th list had at most mandates, implying that and . As the mandate was given to the th list, . Thus , implying that On the other hand, from the specification of Bert's method we know that This inequation contradicts the previous inequation. Hence both methods indeed lead to the same distribution of mandates.

Techniques

Floors and ceilingsLinear and quadratic inequalitiesOther