De Hollander, day 2099: What your congress is doing wrong, part I
Day 2,099, 06:56
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Published in Netherlands 
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by Flando
What your congress is doing wrong, part I
In this edition, what does "What is a 50/60% majority?"?
Our congressmen can vote "Yes", "No" or "Abstain" on a law proposal.
Abstain is for congressmen that do not have a clear opinion on the matter. The abstain vote counts for the quorum, helping congress vote on the matter.
Our congress laws are very clear on having a 50%/60% majority voting "Yes" in order to pass a proposal (depending on wether it is a bill or a motion). My question is: What does this mean?
Example:
Yes: 1
No: 1
Abstain: 2
In this example, 50% of the yes/no voters has voted yes.
But only 25% of the total voters has voted yes.
There is nothing to be found in the congress rules that tells us what to do.
I'm not saying people are making mistakes, I'm pointing out a flaw in our system.
Does this have a big effect on our society? Yes! definately!, a lot of votes would never have made it if we were to suddenly start counting the abstain voters.
Here are some examples:
Vote: Changes to lawbook III
Yes / Ja : 7
No / Nee : 3
Abstain / Onthouden : 2
Without abstain: 60% of 10 votes is 6 votes, 7 is enough
With abstain: 60% of 12 votes is 7.2 votes, 7 is not enough
In this cases, the Chairman made no mistakes. But it is clear that using either one of the options make a huge difference.
This next vote is even more interesting.
Vote: Motion of no confidence Van Spijck VIII
Yes/Ja: 5
No/Nee: 4
Abstain/Onthouden: 2
Without abstain: 50% of 9 votes is 4.5 votes, 5 is enough
With abstain: 50% of 11 votes is 5.5 votes, 5 is not enough
This is a very important vote, resulting in the removal of the government.
More cheating on this particular vote on the next edition.
Do not be afraid to V+S
In this edition, what does "What is a 50/60% majority?"?
Our congressmen can vote "Yes", "No" or "Abstain" on a law proposal.
Abstain is for congressmen that do not have a clear opinion on the matter. The abstain vote counts for the quorum, helping congress vote on the matter.
Our congress laws are very clear on having a 50%/60% majority voting "Yes" in order to pass a proposal (depending on wether it is a bill or a motion). My question is: What does this mean?
Example:
Yes: 1
No: 1
Abstain: 2
In this example, 50% of the yes/no voters has voted yes.
But only 25% of the total voters has voted yes.
There is nothing to be found in the congress rules that tells us what to do.
I'm not saying people are making mistakes, I'm pointing out a flaw in our system.
Does this have a big effect on our society? Yes! definately!, a lot of votes would never have made it if we were to suddenly start counting the abstain voters.
Here are some examples:
Vote: Changes to lawbook III
Yes / Ja : 7
No / Nee : 3
Abstain / Onthouden : 2
Without abstain: 60% of 10 votes is 6 votes, 7 is enough
With abstain: 60% of 12 votes is 7.2 votes, 7 is not enough
In this cases, the Chairman made no mistakes. But it is clear that using either one of the options make a huge difference.
This next vote is even more interesting.
Vote: Motion of no confidence Van Spijck VIII
Yes/Ja: 5
No/Nee: 4
Abstain/Onthouden: 2
Without abstain: 50% of 9 votes is 4.5 votes, 5 is enough
With abstain: 50% of 11 votes is 5.5 votes, 5 is not enough
This is a very important vote, resulting in the removal of the government.
More cheating on this particular vote on the next edition.
Do not be afraid to V+S
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Comments
Interesting! +v
This has been brought up several times in the past months, and it seems indeed strange that with the current 17 headed Congress, 4 positive votes would be enough for a motion to pass (0,51% x 40% x(17+1).)
But is it? I gave it some thought back then and an abstain says imo "I don't care or I am simply not informed enough". You have no opinion or you don't want it to be known/counted. Either way you basically leave it up to the majority of the people who do have an opinion.
I always wonder: why abstain? If you care enough about the outcome, you don't abstain imo. If you abstain, you should be aware that your 'non-vote' only counts for the quorum and in this way helps people to get a motion or bill to pass with a very low number of votes.
We could change the quorum, but that would cause new issues. The problem lies not in the system, but in the people that are in Congress but are not informed enough to form an opinion. If all CM's would vote and have an opinion, it would take a decent 10 outof 18 votes to pass a motion.
Making a law stating the abstain does or does not count for the percentage is the easiest way to solve this
If abstain doesnt count then whats the point of pressing the button
Because it will still count for the Quorum
Our congress laws are very clear on having a 50%/60% majority voting "Yes" in order to pass a proposal (depending on wether it is a bill or a motion). My question is: What does this mean?
Example:
Yes: 1
No: 1
Abstain: 2
50% is NO majority,
if you mean 50 to 60% please do 50-60%
Irrilevant. I was pointing out how the counting works, not showing when a vote would pass
just pointing out,
Abstain means "don't care". So it's NOT a no. As such it shouldn't be counted as a no.
So if a vote requires >50% to vote yes, and 2 people vote yes, 1 votes no, and 10 abstain, then that is counted as a 66.66% in favour.
If you would count for the total number of votes, then 2/13 voted yes, which is indeed only 15.4%. But that means that abstain is counted as a no, which it definitely is not.
On the other hand 13 people participated in the voting process. This is also relevant, since a vote with only 3 people participating is not valid (it doesn't meet the quorum). In my example, these 10 people who "didn't care" have announced that they "didn't care". And that makes all the difference. If they hadn't done anything, it would be a decision by 3 people, instead of the "entire congress".
You are absolutely correct. That is the way it should be. I'm just pointing out that the law doesn't say that, see it as journalism instead of criticism
Not everything needs to be written in the law. If it's common sense, and everybody knows what's meant, it's not really needed.
Likewise, if it's just bureaucratic nonsense, it's not needed.
I think that was one of the philosophies of the "CRAP commitee", which made major revisions of our lawbook a few years ago.
change abstain into neutral... counts for the quorum not towards yes and no
easy as that
abstaining will be actually what the word means... people abstained
I actually tried to implement this quite some time ago, lot of resistance back then against it...