Victor d’Hondt, the dead Belgian who could influence the European elections

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2019/may/22/victor-dhondt-the-dead-belgian-who-could-influence-the-european-elections

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Name: Victor d’Hondt.

Is this Man City’s latest signing? To replace captain Vinnie Kompany? Er, no, he is a bit old for that. You are supposed to start with “age”.

Sorry … age: 177.

Ah. So, dead presumably? In 1901, sadly.

But he was a Belgian footballer? He was from Belgium, yes, but he was actually a lawyer, and a mathematician.

Still, another famous Belgian! That makes five, doesn’t it – along with Poirot, Tintin, Rubens and Kim Clijsters ... Plus Romelu Lukaku, Queen Mathilde, Henry of Ghent – there are loads. Victor was also from Ghent, although he’s not that famous. It’s more about what he did than who he was.

What did he do? He was born into a Catholic family of lawyers, and after completing his law studies, he registered at the Ghent bar.

Fascinating. Wait, it gets better, I promise. After 10 years, he became a clerk at the commercial court of Ghent.

Zzzzzzz – And married an English woman called Anne Clifford.

Lovely. Is that the better bit? As well as becoming professor of law at Ghent Uni, he became active in politics …

Speaking of which, there are the European elections to worry about, so why are we concerning ourselves with a dead Belgian clerk? Because, in 1882, d’Hondt published his Système pratique et raisonné de représentation proportionnelle, which aimed to ensure an equitable distribution of parliamentary seats among Catholics and Liberals and between the different language communities in Belgium.

Gotcha! The D’Hondt method! Exactly, although in the US it is known as the Jefferson method, after Thomas, because it is unconstitutional and illegal to have anything named after a Belgian there. Probably.

But it is proportional representation, right? The one used for these European elections? Yes, as well as for the election of governments in many countries, including Japan, Spain, Paraguay and – obviously – Belgium.

Remind us how it goes. It is a mathematical formula, quot = v/(s + 1), where quot is the quotient, v is the total number of seats a party receives and s is the number of seats the party has been allocated so far, initially zero for all parties …

Er … I know, it is quite complicated. It needs graphics, and Jeremy Vine. There is a good explainer on YouTube. Basically, it means seats are allocated roughly in proportion to the number of votes a party gets, and spread as evenly as possible.

Does it still mean Nigel Farage wins? D’Hondt count on it … Well, yes, afraid so. Especially so, in fact. Ironic, when he was a bureaucrat from if not Brussels, then at least Belgium.

Do Say: “Victor d’Hondt, the man from Ghent who taught the world to vote.”