[Tagging] Clarify explicit abstention when voting on a proposal

[Paul Allen]

On Thu, 27 Feb 2020 at 18:56, Markus <selfishseahorse at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Feb 2020 at 15:06, Paul Allen <pla16021 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > However, despite the option being labelled an abstention, it is NOT an
> abstention.
> > Technically, it is a "spoiled ballot."  Spoiled ballots DO contribute to
> a quorum in
> > most voting systems. [...]
>
> Really? Wikipedia says [1]:
>
> In voting, a ballot is considered spoilt, spoiled, void, null,
> informal, invalid or stray if a law declares or an election authority
> determines that it is invalid and thus **not included in the vote
> count**.
>

Wikipedia is not noted for its consistency.  From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstention

Abstentions do not count in tallying the vote negatively or positively;
when members abstain, they are in effect attending only to contribute to a
quorum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum>. White votes, however, may be
counted in the total of votes, depending on the legislation.

Note that abstentions can only contribute to a quorum in things like
parliamentary
votes where people are required to attend.  As far as ordinary voters in
elections
go, there may be no requirement to attend or vote (depending on
legislation) and
no quorum.

-- 
Paul
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