Claimant
Harvey Steffke, Nelaga Territories
v.
Respondent
Erik Mortis, Primate of the Small Commonwealth
Heard under: Section 4, Convention on the Establishment of a Commonwealth Court
Claim
1. The Claimant poses a question regarding a common section of many Small Commonwealth treaties, namely:
The Claimant poses the following question:Small Commonwealth Ongoing recWar League Treaty wrote:8. This treaty may be modified by the agreement of 3/4s of signatory nations.
2. The Claimant also poses a second question, on the subject of proper voting procedures in the Small Commonwealth Assembly.Harvey Steffke wrote:does the Court see this line as requiring 3/4 of ALL signatory nations in agreement for a modification to pass, or just 3/4 of the votes from signatory nations that bother to show up and vote? Or, said another way, if a nation doesn't vote at all, is it counted against the quota of agreement?
Pursuant to III, 2 of the Commonwealth Court Regulations, the Claimant may now continue to present his case, or he may yield the floor to the Respondent.Harvey Steffke wrote:All of our charters are silent on what proper voting procedure is, which has worked well enough until now, but it does leave room for doubt that perhaps the Court can shed some light on.
I have always viewed an abstain vote as the vote assigned to a party that doesn't issue an actual vote, and to actually enter an abstain vote is the political equivalent of saying "I see this and I am not going to vote on it, and I thought saying so in this way would be nicer than just ignoring the voting process and not voting at all." However, in several micronational governments in the past, based on the way quotas based on active populations were set up, an abstain vote was a functional nay vote, in the sense proposals needed a certain quota of active citizens approving to pass, and not voting or issuing the abstain vote was the equivalent of voting against it since the procedures only counted votes in approval vs. any sort of vote not in approval, including not voting at all.
What is the Court's stance on this, and how does this stance interact with the first question, above?