Shireroth

I started a new thread for this. The treaties have to be cleaned up when it comes to voting quotas. This part for example doesn't make much sense:

2. Nations wishing to join the commonwealth must be approved by the Commonwealth Assembly with at least a 1/3rd plurality. If rejected, a nation may reapply in 3 months.

Could the person that wrote that (Erik?) please explain what it means, and then maybe we can write it in an unambiguous way.

Same goes for:

A simple majority (50%+1)

A simple majority is not the same thing as 50%+1.

Malliki Tosha wrote:Same goes for:

A simple majority (50%+1)

A simple majority is not the same thing as 50%+1.

They must mean an absolute majority. It could be a simple majority of 50%+1 if there were only two options, but, of course, there's always abstain.

50%+1 is a bad description. Simple or absolute majority are far better descriptions. Say you have 7 votes. What is the required number of Ayes to pass if the description is 50%+1? It could be 7/2 = 3.5+1 = 4.5 = 5, when the correct answer is 4.

Well the 1/3rd thing had a reason I explained in the other thread. Do you just wanna know what I meant numerically by 1/3rd? 1/3rd of votes must be Aye. I prefer to ignore Abstains for votes. So if we got 10 voters. 3 Aye, 6 Nay and 1 abstain. 1/3rd is met.

Guess I'm just used to 50%+1 being clear(We used it a lot in the old days...). It means Greater then 50%, so 50.000001% would be over. So I guess we can just rephrase it to "Greater then 50%" So if we have 10 voters. No abstain. 6 must be Aye. If we have 1 abstain 5 must be Aye.

Don't you think that it would cause unnecessary conflicts within the SC if a minority can overrule the majority?

I think "simple majority" should be used.

I only support using 1/3rd for admittance. ALL other cases I agree 100% with you.

Word it how you wish. It's just a technical issue, not a philosophical one.

The official Batavian opinion is that we should switch to 1/2 of the votes casted instead of 1/3 of the votes casted when a nation applies for membership. (I'm not really in a position to debate on this, since it is not my personal opinion.)

Could change the numerical explanation to +50% or >50% or something along those lines.

There is no need for a numerical explanation.

Well, for anyone who doesn't know what a simple majority is, it's helpful for them to have it defined on the spot.

Chrimigules wrote:Well, for anyone who doesn't know what a simple majority is, it's helpful for them to have it defined on the spot.

And given the confusion in the original treaty, it seems quite necessary.

For anyone who doesn't know what a simple majority is, I recommend Wikipedia.

Perhaps, but it's usually considered proper for such documents to define and spell out explicitly things that may not be understood as is. A lot of legal documents are filled with definitions.

The definition is "simple majority". If you don't know what a "majority" is, you probably can't read the treaty to begin with.

Malliki Tosha wrote:For anyone who doesn't know what a simple majority is, I recommend Wikipedia.

Oddly enough, it suggests two definitions which, while equivalent for all votes involving only two options, differs in meaning if we ever conduct a vote more complex than "Approve" or "Deny", and doesn't explicitly address how Abstains are counted.

So I'd suggest that the treaty clearly state that Abstains are not counted towards the total votes in determining a percentage.
And I'd think that >50% is more helpful than 'simple majority', because as wikipedia has pointed out, apparently Americans define Simple Majority as >50%, where as I would think of it as 'the option with the most votes' and think of 50%+1 as 'absolute majority'. Numbers are clear, while words are not always so.