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Hi everyone, I'd like regional input on this, and I'm posting it specifically in this Citizens Platform because this issue was brought up by Chanku, who is currently a citizen.

The act as it stands in the Overhusen has two abstentions, and two votes for. As far as my basic level of understanding is on abstentions, they do not count in tallying the vote negatively or positively. Thus, the vote has two votes positively for it, and thus passes.

However, there may be something in the Fundamental Laws that I'm missing that means that this act actually fails, due to the fact it requires two-thirds supermajority support to pass, which in fact it needs a positive result from at least three members of the Overhusen. If this is the case, then the abstentions actually vote against the act in a negative fashion, not as direct opposition but simply lack of support, and thus the act fails.

I'd prefer to do the right thing on such an important act of the region, so I look forward to all your input here. In the meantime, I'm using my prerogative to hold off declaring the outcome of the act.

We settled this issue in the UH a while ago when we amedned the procedural rules to say "aye" votes must exceed "nay" votes in order for the bill to pass. So if this was the case in the UH, the bill would have passed. However, this is a co stitutional amendment and the rules are different. When the statute calls for an explicit mention of support (I.e. "aye" votes) and the bill fails to reach the required threshold, then the bill should fail. In my opinion.

The entire nature of super majorities, the entire purpose of them is to give a higher threshold for passing. Otherwise a simple majority would be used. A supermajority of the OH, which has four members, is 3. Therefore it fails to get enough votes in favor to pass. Further we have always calculated votes this way.

Just for the record, the Fundamental Laws asks for:

VII. Constitutional Amendments

2. The Storting shall have the authority to propose amendments to the Constitution by a two-thirds supermajority vote of both the Underhusen and Overhusen.

Wikipedia states that in a standard two-thirds supermajority vote:

A two-thirds vote, when unqualified, means at least two-thirds of the votes cast. This voting basis is equivalent to the number of votes in favor being at least twice the number of votes against. Abstentions are excluded in calculating a two-thirds vote. When unqualified, a two-thirds vote only applies to those present and voting.

The two-thirds requirement can be qualified to include the entire membership of a body instead of only those present and voting, but such a requirement must be explicitly stated (such as "two-thirds of those members duly elected and sworn").

So in the wider legal world, I believe this should pass, as abstentions actually count for nothing rather than against the act. But then again, Wintreath is not the wider legal world

It should pass. It would be a terrible PRECEDENT for something like this to fail because some members in the OH could not bring themselves to vote aye.

Having the bill fail simply due to abstentions penalizes those who choose not to decide the outcome of the act; those who abstain do so in order to leave the decision to everyone else. Furthermore, if abstaining is functionally equivalent to a nay vote, why have if in the first place, then?

It should pass. It would be a terrible PRECEDENT for something like this to fail because some members in the OH could not bring themselves to vote aye.

Aside from the fact that this has been established procedure for years, this would only apply to amendments to the FL.

Having the bill fail simply due to abstentions penalizes those who choose not to decide the outcome of the act; those who abstain do so in order to leave the decision to everyone else. Furthermore, if abstaining is functionally equivalent to a nay vote, why have if in the first place, then?

Bills have failed due to not enough people voting on it before IIRC. So not voting is also functionally equivalent. Further an abstain is neither in favor or against, but merely means that they have no dissent but do not completely support it. Thus abstains must not count towards favor.

Further this is an FL amendment and passing it here would risk people voting against it I'm the future due to how it passed the OH (I have had this occur with a statutory bill in the OH due to how it passed the UH). There should be a higher threshold  for these amendments anyways

If the bill is going to fail because of abstentions, then so be it. It's about time to test the override function.

9. Should the Overhusen veto any legislation, the legislation may be reintroduced in the Underhusen for the purposes of either revising the proposal or overriding the veto. The Underhusen may overturn a veto by a two-thirds supermajority vote.

Further an abstain is neither in favor or against, but merely means that they have no dissent but do not completely support it. Thus abstains must not count towards favor.

But this is my point exactly; that if an abstention doesn't count towards favor, than it is against the bill. You can't have it both ways; its either neither in favor or against, and thus is ignored when calculating the total, or it doesn't count towards favor, and is therefore considered against.

However abstintions are still vote, a neutral one, but a vote at that. Further due to the supermajority nature of FL amendments it would be fucking insane not to count it and it is also fucking insane to move the goal posts in this once instance. Again because it is a Supermajority it should be calculated with the whole chamber in mind, as this is how things were done in the past, and in order to measure if it has done so all votes must be counted. Also do you really want to pull some shady shit to get something to pass Wuufu? I doubt you do.

It is a fundamentally agreed definition of a supermajority that it is only of those voting. In fact, our new bill includes multiple supermajority votes "[two-thirds or three-fourths] of those voting" as well.

At this point, I worry you are being an obstructionist and are only doing this because you personally don't want the bill to pass. When it comes to ratifying it, just have your nay vote and move on.

If it was just me I would have filed a court case however PB has agreed with me, @Pengu has agreed with me in IRC and axis/Joshua has agreed with me.

These people either support or are neutral to the amendment or support it.

As far as I'm aware, neutrality votes never count for or against any measure, except for that time when as Underhusen Speaker Chanku counted an abstain vote as a nay to kill a measure he was against (after counting an abstain vote as neutral to pass a measure he did support).

Interesting that Chanku tries to bring this back up again on another measure he doesn't support.

Stop with the fucking political games, Chanku. You're not very good at it.

Honestly, vote it down. Fail it. We'll find another way.

If Chanku is against the Amendment, he will have the opportunity to vote against it in the ratification vote. However, what he's attempting to do, which is derail the entire Amendment over an ambiguity (which isn't even really an ambiguity, since precedent shows that abstain votes should be counted neutrally) because he doesn't support it, isn't fair to anyone.

Also, if it's voted down in the Overhusen, then it can't be overriden in the Underhusen, because it's very clear that Amendments need to pass both chambers in order to go to ratification.