# 9. Strategic voting ## 9.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ## 9.5.1. Abstention Most democratic and pseudo-democratic institutions have constitutions which set out certain rules concerning the taking of a vote, such as the minimum majority required to carry a motion, quorum size, e.g. "two thirds of members must be present", etc. It is these rules which the strategic voter exploits when he decides to abstain. For instance, in a committee of ten where there is a split of 7:3 against the manipulator and a clause in the voting constitution which demands a 100% vote, the manipulator cannot win by voting, but he can abstain and thus have the motion dismissed. This at least buys him time until the motion is raised again. The advantage of abstention depends entirely on which voting rules apply in a given situation. **Example: Abstention or None of the above:** 9.1 Abstention has many possible effects depending on the circumstances and the particular rules of how abstentions are managed. A sizable abstention may cause a vote to fail completely when a minimum percentage of electors or quorum is not reached. In other cases, abstention may politically invalidate the outcome of an election. If only 20% of the electorate turn out to vote, few politicians can really claim a resounding vote of confidence. In small votes, abstention can also be useful. Members of the UN Security Council often abstain rather than using their veto. It has the effect of allowing a popular move to proceed but without giving it the moral consent of their nation. In elections in 1991 in the Soviet Union the use of the "none of the above" forced new elections in over 200 cases and led to the defeat of over 100 incumbents. Boris Yeltsin later claimed that the use of the "none of the above" had been pivotal in convincing the Soviet population that, despite the rigged elections, they could still exercise some power by using this form of abstention.