[pp.int.general] Last GA proceedings

[Maxime Rouquet]

On 03/12/2013 12:20 PM, Jan Lettow wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Antonio Garcia <ningunotro at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > ...
>> > that 9 out of 17 cast votes is a 2/3 majority.
> 
> Easy enough to read up.
> 
> 
> Wikipedia:
> 
> "[...] rather than speaking of a two-thirds majority the unambiguous
> phrases such as "two-thirds of those present and voting", "two-thirds
> of those present" (which has the effect of counting abstentions as
> votes against the proposal), or "two-thirds of the entire membership"
> [...] are used."
> -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#Two-thirds_majority
> 
> 
> Statutes:
> 
> "(2) Decisions concerning the admission of new Members (section III.
> paragraph 4), the exclusion of Members (section VII, paragraph 2), the
> determination of the annual affiliation fee (section XVI, paragraph 1)
> and the amendment of this Statutes (section XX), shall be passed by a
> two thirds majority OF THE VOTES CAST. "

>From what I remember of CoA's debates, this paragraph does not apply, as
it deals with the admission of *new* Members. Since PP-CAT was already a
(Observer) Member of the PPI, it was a vote to _change_ their Membership
status, and therefore subject to a vote as described in paragraph XI.1 :

> (1) Each Ordinary Member shall have one vote and resolutions shall be
> taken by a simple majority of the Members present or represented and
> voting. In the event of a tie, the motion is defeated.

But, anyway, I do not think things would be different anyway. As the
Wikipedia article you quoted highlights, the "two-thirds majority" can
be 3 ways :
* 2/3 of the voters present and voting (abstentions not counted) ;
* 2/3 of the voters present (abstentions counted as votes against) ;
* 2/3 of all the voters (absent voters counted as votes against).

The extract from the statutes you quoted is clear on the fact that it
was not the last option that worked in our case.

But, did abstention count as "a vote cast" ? From what I remember we
decided on Saturday that abstentions would not count, and that therefore
only the "Yes" and "No" votes would be compared to see if a vote had passed.

Following this principle (that raising a white card / abstaining is not
considered as voting) we would be in the first case here, and "9 Yes
against 3 No with 5 abstention" is 3/4 of Yes, which is more than 2/3.

Regards,

m