
# 9: Apportionment


Apportionment involves dividing something up, just like fair division. In fair division we are dividing objects among people while in apportionment we are dividing people among places. Also like fair division, the apportionment processes that are widely used do not always give the best answer, and apportionment is still an open field of mathematics. Apportionment is used every day in American politics. It is used to determine the size of voting districts and to determine the number of representatives from each state in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another example of how apportionment can be used is to assign a group of new fire fighters to the fire stations in town in an equitable way. Overall, apportionment is used to divide up resources (human or otherwise) in as fair a way as possible.

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9: Apportionment is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Maxie Inigo, Jennifer Jameson, Kathryn Kozak, Maya Lanzetta, & Kim Sonier via source content that was edited to conform to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.