1)Europarl to Lino
AS had made it practically impossible for the NO vote to win because he suggested 3 options to the electorate and for those suggestions he can hypothetically be assumed an undeclared (my logical assumption), sly, NO campaigning Europhile.

Comment – the origin of the argument

2)David to Daphne
Both AS and JM, by abstaining, voted unintentionally in favour of EU membership, and abstaining is voting for the majority by default, and that is simple maths and democracy.

Comment – I disagree. By abstaining they intentionally decreased the votes in favour of EU membership if they were Europhiles and intentionally decreased the votes against EU membership if they were Euro sceptics. But factually (not intentionally or otherwise), they decreased the votes cast. And yours is not simple maths. Its sheer illogic. Yet democracy allows you to say that.

3)David to Europarl
“And you say they were not campaigning against membership?

Hallina trid!”

Comment – That’s taking my side on the original argument.

4)Lino to Europarl
“Yes and also practically possible for the YES vote to lose. Like

David Buttigieg posted earlier ‘Abstaining is voting for the majority’ with the important difference that one cannot tell what that majority would be. That is why it is very irresponsible.”

Comment – I add ‘Abstaining is like voting for the majority with the important difference that one cannot tell what that majority would be when. That is why it is very irresponsible.’ And again, abstaining does not equate to voting.

5)Daphne to David
If you leave yourself out of the equation, you just don’t figure.

Comment – Ding dong (with the kind permission of Meerkat)

6)David to Daphne
If there are 5 yes votes and 5 No votes,thus nobody having a majority and 1 NO vote decides not to vote, the Yes have an absolute majority. By not voting the NO voter automatically lowered the threshold the YES votes need for an absolute majority, in effect “voting Yes”. If for example NO had won, the non voters would have been NO votes by default.

Comment – If there are 5 YES votes and 5 NO votes, the polling is done, and the 1 NO vote cannot decide not to vote once he has voted. By not buying a lottery ticket, you are not increasing the winning chances for others who do. Just as much as by buying a lottery ticket you are not decreasing the losing (or winning) chances for others who don’t. And now if there were 6 NO intending voters and 5 YES intending voters and 1 NO intending voter abstains while all the others do vote as they intend, which majority would he have helped to win?

7)Lino to David
Well David let us say the votes were not as you say…… who could ever tell. Besides that a NO-saying non-voter is an abstainer. To add … iggudikawna b’dak li naghmlu mhux b’dak li nghidu.

Comment – Vide comment in 6)

8)David to Lino
Lino, those figures are an easy example but the same holds true for any amount of votes, whichever way they voted.
By abstaining, your vote is not counted in an election. Therefore by abstaining you are automatically voting in favour of whoever gets the majority.
What you meant to do does not count for the end result.

Comment – I disagree. By abstaining you are automatically not voting; you are just reducing the amount of votes cast. Again see

comment in 6). ‘What you meant to do does not count for the end result.’ True, but it counts a lot in view of the original argument. You see, the whole argument is about principles and pragmatism.

9)Lino to David
Your hypothesis holds true for any amount of votes but only if they are assumed to be divided 50/50.

Comment – To add, even if the number of YES/NO intending eligible voters is 50/50, the NO intending abstainers must be more in number than the YES intending abstainers for a YES victory, and the reason why should YES intending voters abstain, is the same as for the NO intending abstainers. Irresponsibility.

10)David to Lino
Lino, I can see your Maths is not too good so for the hell of it let me explain and take the Referendum as an example.

Non voters – 27248
Invalid votes – 3911 – 31159
YES votes – 143094
NO votes – 123628 – 266722 divided by 2 = 133361
Eligible votes – 297881 – divided by 2 = 148940

with me so far?

By not voting those 31,159 lowered the 50% threshold to 133,361,

giving the Yes votes a LEGAL and ACTUAL 53.65% majority.
Now Sant claimed those 31,159 were NO votes .
In PRACTICE not voting is AUTOMATICALLY voting for whoever has the majority PRECISELY because the vote is not taken into account when counting the total.
If you can’t understand this I suggest you ask your maths teacher again.

Comment – As to the first part, adding up the numbers, I agree except that 148940 should read 148940.5 ( you see I’m not that bad at Maths after all).
As to the first sentence you are stating the obvious, NOW. Sant wasn’t THEN, was he?. He tried to play the tossing game with a two ‘heads’ penny (or a two ‘tails’ penny if you want), or a ‘heads you lose tails I win’ game rules. Sant claimed that abstaining voters were factually voters, exactly like your’e doing. Wrong.
As to the second sentence, perhaps it should read ‘…. for whoever GETS the majority…’ But again how can, not voting be voting, and how can a vote not be taken into account, or better an uncast vote be taken into account, when counting the totals.

If you can’t understand this I suggest you ask your logics teacher.

11)SB to all
David Buttigieg is right. No one doubted Lawrence Gonzi when saying that an abstention (or a vote for AD) means a vote for MLP! So why all this fuss against David’s comments?

Comment – Wrong. I did. I thought that abstaining was reducing

PN’s chances so I voted PN. I could also have thought that another abstainer might be reducing MLP’s chances, but I didn’t take the ‘pairing’ risk. Not that I wanted to abstain, anyway.

12)David to Corinne

Trust me I know exactly what I’m saying. If you can’t understand it that’s another matter.

Comment – I wish I were Corinne….Grrrrrrrrr.

13)David to moderator
it is precisely because the winner is calculated on the number of valid votes cast that MATHEMATICALLY by abstaining you are giving the majority a vote advantage. You have no choice who is that majority however and it is here that it differs from actually voting. By the way, don’t take my word for it, ask any statistician. Quite frankly if you don’t understand it I can’t really explain much more.

Comment – Again I wish I were the moderator….Grrrrrr. With your permission Mod: David, read last part of comment 6).

14)Moderator to David
By abstaining you lose the ability to prevent or create an advantage, you are not ‘giving’ an advantage because it is already there. When the parties are tied, you lose the ability to break the tie.

Comment – Ding dong (again please Meerkat don’t sue me for rights)

David to Mod
Actually Moderator I’ll grant you that by abstaining you have no effect IF THE VOTES ARE EXACTLY 50/50.
In reality that never happens.

Comment – Discrimination! You didn’t grant me that in my posting

9). In reality though it can happen

David,
statistics cram a time-periodic event into timeless set of data; the reverse of this is not possible. In Maltese we say ‘meta Kolombu pogga ‘l-bajda wieqfa kulhadd qal ‘iss x’gherf.’ We also say ‘li kieku waqa w kiser siequ’. You remember ‘Seven brides for seven brothers’? Each girl stating she was the mother of the same baby?
One can extrapolate from given data, but it will always be a guess albeit scientific, no matter how small the margin of error is. That is why statistics is a tool which is very aptly used by politicians. Yet the original argument was about principles vs pragmatism.

Really, this is getting ridiculous, this is not something I made up but a simple maths sum.

P.S.
I never thought much of St Dorothy’s either!

St Dorothy’s Convent, Mdina

In reality that never happens.

Otherwise, a rose by any other name …..

Moderator, it is precisely because the winner is calculated on the number of valid votes cast that MATHEMATICALLY by abstaining you are giving the majority a vote advantage. You have no choice who is that majority however and it is here that it differs from actually voting.

By the way, don’t take my word for it, ask any statistician.

Quite frankly if you don’t understand it I can’t really explain much more.

[Moderator – By abstaining you lose the ability to prevent or create an advantage, you are not ‘giving’ an advantage because it is already there. When the parties are tied, you lose the ability to break the tie.]

[Moderator – Because as you imply, it depends on the context. Abstaining is a mutually exclusive event, even when both parties are tied down to the last vote, because the winner is calculated on the number of valid votes cast, and not the total number of voters. Abstaining is more a case of losing the potential to enhance the position of a party over that of another.]