A quorum on the Clark?

[Sir Lüc]

I noticed RZ20 presently has 80 AUS votes in the Cosa, and might very well end up with fewer than 100 seats voting either PER or CON combined. I don't have a fully formed opinion on this, but I thought it would be interesting to pose a question (well, two questions) to whomever stumbles across this:

- Should a bill require a quorum of each House voting any way (PER/CON/AUS) in order to pass? Why/why not?

- Should a bill require a quorum of each House not abstaining (ie voting either PER or CON combined) in order to pass? Why/why not?

(I'm assuming here that a quorum is a majority of filled seats, so 101 in the Cosa and 5 in the Senate, but I think this is secondary to the questions above)

[Sir Lüc]

For the record I'm of two minds on this;

on one hand it would be odd to let a bill pass on a handful of PER votes (even 1 PER, 0 CON and 199 AUS/no show, in the case of my first question, or 51 PER, 50 CON, 99 AUS/no show, in the second);

on the other hand it would also be unfair to have AUS count the same as CON if abstaining meant denying a quorum, in the event a quorum was defined as in my second question (so, say, a bill with 51 PER, 50 CON and 99 AUS/no show would pass, but a bill with 51 PER, 49 CON and 100 AUS/no show would not; this evidently would change how people vote).

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

For me, AUS is a signal for "I don't care, let the majority decide". That's still valid if the majority is 1 seat. So, let things stand.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

The existing law is pretty clear. Org.VII.9 says, "Except where otherwise provided in this Organic Law, when determining the outcome of a vote in either house of the Ziu, 'austanéu' votes will not be counted."

And more specifically in the next section:

"Except where otherwise provided in this Organic Law any bill which receives more 'për' votes than 'contrâ' votes in the Cosa and the Senäts is considered to have been adopted by the Ziu, and all other bills are considered to have been rejected. Any bill adopted by the Ziu is sent at once to the King for his assent."

For the reason Miestra says, this existing law seems the best approach.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Concur with both Miestra and the Baron on keeping the existing state -- as you yourself pointed out, to do otherwise effectively makes AUS equivalent to CON.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

I agree with all the above. I'd also note that I personally see an Aus vote as recording your presence for the purpose of establishing a quorum, so yes, one Per would pass a bill in the presence of such quorum.

[owenedwards]

I agree with all the above. I'd also note that I personally see an Aus vote as recording your presence for the purpose of establishing a quorum, so yes, one Per would pass a bill in the presence of such quorum.

This is not an uncommon practice - UK charities, especially member charities, often use this kind of method - though they usually also count it AGAINST the vote on something requiring a formal vote and success threshold (such as election of certain officers). Not suggesting we should do that latter, just citing a parallel