I have never assumed that "abstains" would count towards the number needed for a majority. That's not how it works in Congress or the UN or anywhere. The only question about "abstains" is whether they count towards the minimum voter turnout needed. Which is one of the proposed questions on the new ballot. Were others thinking differently?

65 is probably large, because some of the people that voted may really regret it. So if we make an estimate of how many people's heads exploded, and subtract that from 130 before we halve, it may be better.

I am much like bitterchick, except neither as bitter nor as tall. I believe that voting is a better way, but damn ... this is a lot of foofurrah.

I voted for one thing, and we're micro-nitting something I thought I voted against. It makes finding the posts with stuff I might actually need to read to vote sensibly really hard.

Because we voted to require a mininum number of votes.

That I understand. I asked the question for additional information beyond the vote count -- I'm trying to work out the rationale behind that, because if I do better understand it, I may not need to abstain on the MVT, nor just plonk down the lowest number automatically.

But if we're using "majority" to mean "50%+1" then the abstentions have to count, don't they? If the final vote is 49% yes, 10% no, 41% abstain, there's no majority, and the motion doesn't pass.

I wasn't sure how it was going to work (I've been skimming not reading).

So, people vote, you throw out the abstains and then count the Yes/Nos and count that to the simple majority?

I'm not sure I understand the process right though.

We have an issue, we need X number of voters to even vote on it. So we open the voting and then tally the votes and if we don't get the minimum needed there's announcement saying "Sorry, the minimum number of votes required wasn't met." (Counting the number of voters rather than the votes).

An abstain means you are not there. It is no vote. Why would you abstain instead of voting "no"?

And if the choice is between 10 and 65, and there is no majority because the abstains count, and we can't talk about it again for 6 months and we already voted that there has to be a minimum number, we are deadlocked.

But, I digress a bit.

At this point, I don't think we can deal with the whole ballot. We can only deal with this one question.

But if we're using "majority" to mean "50%+1" then the abstentions have to count, don't they?

Not if you define it as 50% +1 of those who have an opinion. Which, again, is how Congress & UN work.

Oy... We really should have defined our terms better.

Jess that's what I was thinking.

I can understand using 50%+1 when we only have 2 Issues because that's how it will add up.

But if there are more than 2 Issues OR if we include abstaining votes then we have to use the most number of votes because there's no way there can be 50%+1.

Why would you abstain instead of voting "no"?

You might if abstains count towards the minimum voter turnout. You might think an issue is important enough to be decided, even though you, yourself, can't decide. This is another reason why it makes no sense (to me) for abstains to count towards the number needed for a majority.

If abstentions aren't counted as votes, then why are they even on the ballot?