Fellow Legislators,

the members of the Partnership for Sovereignty have agreed on an amendment to its Charter. Before that takes effect, we have to debate and vote on it here in TSP.

The amendment is relatively simple: It establishes a quorum requirement for votes that PfS delegations make. This comes as a result of a vote to admit another region, in which most regions abstained rather than voted for or against. This meant that it could have been just 2 regions that decided on something as serious as whether or not to accept another region into the Partnership. Generally, the amendment establishes a 50% quorum for all votes. As a bonus, the amendment also includes an extra provision for when a membership vote fails quorum, for which a new vote should be held at a later time.

Both Prime Minister Sandaoguo and myself thought that this amendment is reasonable and sensible, and therefore approved it during the vote within PfS itself. The full Cabinet then also approved it. Now it comes to you, my fellow Legislators, to debate and vote. As always, I'm ready and willing to answer any and all of your questions.

For reference, the specific text of the amendment:

Article II. Setting Vote Recommendations.
...
Section 3. After discussion, any representative may motion for a vote on a vote recommendation, such a vote will last 24 hours or until all members have voted. A vote recommendation includes the option preferred by the parties and the reasoning published for the recommendation. In order to issue a recommendation, 60% of voting representatives must support the recommendationa quorum of one-half of delegations must be reached, and three-fifths of non-abstaining representatives must support the recommendation. If the proposed vote recommendation does not reach this threshold, the Partnership will not issue a vote recommendation on that Security Council proposal.
...
Article IV. Membership Guidelines
...
Section 2. Following discussion of the application, a 72 hour vote will be held and, if three-fourths of voting delegations concurnon-abstaining delegations concur, with a quorum of one-half of voting delegations, the region shall be admitted.

Section 3. Should an application vote fail to reach quorum, discussion of the application shall continue for one week, after which a second vote is held. Should the second vote fail to reach quorum, the application is automatically rejected.

Chairwoman, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, I hereby declare in good faith that the amendment presented above is the result of a treaty negotiation with majority executive approval for the purposes of Article VI Section 6 of the Charter of the South Pacific, and request that the corresponding assembly procedure is initiated.

-- Roavin, your friendly lampshade-wearing MoFA

(This post was last modified: 04-21-2021, 06:45 PM by Purple Hyacinth. Edit Reason: Added [PASSED] )

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Seems like a sensible, non-controversial amendment.

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Cross posting what I said in #leg-lounge:

Is there any concern about the quorum requirement in the context of the vote recommendations section being used to artificially block recommendations.

For example, in the current 7 region PfS, regions A-C are for a recommendation, regions D-F are abstaining/unreachable in the 24 hours window, region G is opposed. There's a 3/4ths majority of the regions active/opinionated in favor of the recommendation but region G could choose to abstain/not vote in order to defeat the recommendation despite being in the clear minority.

I understand the necessity of the quorum requirement in the context of new members but less so for recommendations and the vote algebra is different for a simple majority than a supermajority

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When it comes to the addition of members, why even abstain, if an abstention will count as a "nay"?

And Id also like to hear the answer to HS question.

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Quorums are bad for the reasons already stated. I am opposed.

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When it comes to the addition of members, why even abstain, if an abstention will count as a "nay"?

The abstention only counts as a nay if the proposal fails to meet quorum, which somewhat proves the bad incentives for members and their voting strategy created by the quorum requirements.

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

Cross posting what I said in #leg-lounge:

Is there any concern about the quorum requirement in the context of the vote recommendations section being used to artificially block recommendations.

For example, in the current 7 region PfS, regions A-C are for a recommendation, regions D-F are abstaining/unreachable in the 24 hours window, region G is opposed. There's a 3/4ths majority of the regions active/opinionated in favor of the recommendation but region G could choose to abstain/not vote in order to defeat the recommendation despite being in the clear minority.

I understand the necessity of the quorum requirement in the context of new members but less so for recommendations and the vote algebra is different for a simple majority than a supermajority

So, to be perfectly honest, there was no such concern beforehand, though I did bring it to discussion.

First, on the topic of the numbers: With 7 regions, there are 4 scenarios where an abstain brings something else than it did before. I'll go through all of them; for brevity, I'll use the format <Aye>-<Nay>-<Abstain/Absent> to show scenarios.

• 3-0-3 going in, a malicious Abstain/Absent vote would sink the proposal when before it would have passed. However, if any of the Absent votes then submits any non-abstaining vote at all, it will pass anyway (either 3-1-3 or 4-0-3, both with quorum met and 75%/100% For respectively), making this a gamble with low chances of success.
  
• 2-1-3 going in, a malicious Abstain would sink the proposal. Another delegation coming in would bring that to either a 3-1-3 (pass in either scenario) or 2-2-3 (fail in either scenario). An outright nay instead would bring it to 2-2-3, which also fails, so it's not worth going for abstain at all.
  
• 2-0-5 going in, a malicious Abstain would sink the proposal. Another delegation coming in would bring that to either a 3-0-4 (see first example) or 2-1-4 (see second example). An outright nay leads to 2-1-4 which also fails, so it's not worth going for abstain at all.
  
• 1-0-6 going in, it's already failing quorum requirement by a large margin anyway.
  

So basically, the specific scenario you described is the only one where a malicious Abstain is even worth it, and is a gamble because not only can it then be brought to pass by any non-abstain vote by a until-then absent delegation, it's also an unlikely scenario to occur - I've yet to see a recommendation vote that didn't easily pass the new quorum requirement.

Second, the general feeling when I brought it up was that if this scenario were to actually matter (i.e. somebody decides to use a malicious Abstain rather than Nay), it would merely be a symptom of a bigger problem within the alliance or at least that specific member.

When it comes to the addition of members, why even abstain, if an abstention will count as a "nay"?

If it fails quorum the first time around, there will be a second vote later, so in that regard there is a functional difference. But even if that was not the case, it'd be better to not admit when there is so much ambivalence. Adding a new member has a high threshold for passing because it's meant to be more a consensus in the first place.

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I believe the debate time has since expired and therefore I motion this to a vote.

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I believe the debate time has since expired and therefore I motion this to a vote.

Second.

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This has been brought to vote here.

I have been things

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