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In Part 1, I was getting myself confused (courtesy of the prize-winningly-badly-drafted JTC1 Directives) about what votes are needed to approve OpenXML.

Rob Weir has evidently researched the Abstentions issue with ISO and been told that you ignore Absentions in calculating the 2/3 and the 1/4 (see his Comment to Part 1). Meanwhile, I amused myself by trying to get lists of voters. As far as I can see, there are currently 25 P-members of SC34, 32 P-members of JTC1, and 104 members of ISO. All the members of IEC appear also to be members of ISO, as do all 32 P-members of JTC1.

So the first bullet requires at least twice as many of the P-members of JTC1 to vote yes as vote no. If only 5 P-members actually voted (as opposed to voting “abstain” or not bothering at all), then 4 of them would have to vote yes for OpenXML to pass (but see below). If all 32 voted, then 22 of them would have to vote yes.

Similarly, the second bullet requires that at least 3 times as many ISO members vote yes as vote no. So if the 32 P-members of JTC1 all voted yes or no, but no one else bothered, then 24 of them would have to vote yes to jump the second hurdle. If all 104 ISO members voted, then 70 would have to vote yes for OpenXML to pass.

Rob Weir also drew attention to 3.1.1 which has the text “P-members … have an obligation to vote approval, disapproval or declared abstention”. If only that “d” was missing at the end of “declared” it would clearly support the “ignore Abstentions” interpretation!

He also noticed 9.1.10 which states “if more than 50% of the P-members have not voted, the vote will have failed”. So the first example above is wrong. If only 5 P-members voted, then OpenXML would be rejected. Of course, abstaining to scupper a vote is a well-hallowed tactic and would appear to apply here. If everyone but the UK had acted, and just 15 other P-members had voted, 11 if them in favour, then an abstention by the UK (a P-member of JTC1) would kill OpenXML, whereas a vote against would allow it through (provided enough ISO members who were not P-members of JTC1 voted in favour). Of course, those kinds of tactics are fraught with danger unless you are all in a room together!

But since it seems entirely possible that several countries will abstain because they are unable to reach the consensus their rules require, it is ironic that those abstentions could sink OpenXML, whereas votes against might have allowed it to pass.