Abstention is a term in election procedure for when a participant in a vote either does not goes to vote (on election day) or, in parliamentary procedure, isn't absent during the vote, but does not cast a ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with "white vote", in which a participant in a vote cast a deliberately unlegitimate vote (drawing pictures on the ballot, etc.) or in which he simply casts a blank vote: a "white voter" has voted, while an abstentionnist hasn't voted. An election is a decision making process whereby people vote for preferred political candidates or parties to act as representatives in government. ... A parliamentary procedure is the individual process used for decision making by a deliberative assembly. ...

An abstention may be used to indicate the voting individual's ambivalence about the measure, or mild disapproval that does not rise to the level of active opposition. Abstentions do not count in tallying the vote; when members abstain, they are in effect only attending the meeting to aid in constituting a quorum. White votes, however, may be counted in the total of votes, depending on the legislation. In some countries, some activists groups advocates the counting of white votes and plain abstentions in the total result of vote as a way of displaying the percentage of people opposed to all parliamentary options.

A specific case: the 2002 French presidential election

Further information: French presidential election, 2002

During the second turn of the 2002 French presidential election, French citizens had four possible options, since the election opposed Jacques Chirac, leader of the right-wing UMP to Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front — the left-wing, usually represented by the three main parties Socialist Party, Communist Party and Greens, were beaten in the first turn by Chirac and Le Pen). Citizens could // Second Round First Round General Summary On May 1, Labour Day, the yearly demonstrations for workers rights were compounded by protests against Jean-Marie Le Pen. ... The French people (French: les Français, etymologically derives from the word Franks, a Germanic tribe which overan Gaul at the end of the Roman empire). ... Jacques René Chirac (born November 29, 1932), French politician, is President of the French Republic. ... In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply the right, are terms which refer, with no particular precision, to the segment of the political spectrum in opposition to left-wing politics. ... The Union for a Popular Movement, initially named the Union for a Presidential Majority, and in both cases also known by its French acronym UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire and Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle, respectively) is a French right-wing, conservative political party. ... Portrait of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the mid-1990s (in a publicity image from the Front National party). ... Far right, extreme right, ultra-right, radical right, or hard right are terms used to discuss the relative position a group or person occupies within a political spectrum. ... This article is about the French political party, not the WWII French resistance movement Front National. ... In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... The emblem of the French Socialist Party The Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste or PS), founded in 1969, is the main opposition party in France. ... The French Communist Party (French: Parti communiste français or PCF) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. ... Les Verts (the Greens) is a Green Party in France. ...

• either vote for Chirac, as Chirac's party and most of the left-wing parties called for (republican reflex against the overthrow of the Republic, observed in most political crisis in France since the founding of the Third Republic) (this is what 82,21% of the people who voted a legitimate vote — i.e. not counting abstention nor white votes — did);
• vote for Le Pen, as his followers called for or as some rare advocates of the politique du pire, or "politics of the worst option possible", called for, hoping this would lead to a serious political crisis (17,79% of the people who voted a legitimate vote chose Le Pen — not 17,79% of the French citizens!);
• true abstention (not going to vote, which 20,29% of the people did);
• white vote (going to vote but deliberately sending a blank ballot or a ballot with drawings, graffitis, etc., or for neither Chirac nor Le Pen, etc.: which 5,39% of the people did).

Thus, during the two turns of the election, some left-wing radicals had called for a massive abstention or/and a massive white votes: instead of giving 82,21% to Chirac against 17,79% to Le Pen at the second turn, they would have rather counted a mass of left-wing "white votes" which would have put into question the whole democratic legitimity of the election. Under actual French legislation, nothing would have happenned since abstentionists and neutral, blank, votes are not tallied — Chirac wasn't elected with 82,21% support from the French population, but with 82,21% support from the people who went to vote and didn't cast a neutral, white, vote; if we take out the 20,29% of abstentionists and the 5,39% of white votes, than Chirac was elected by 82% of 79,71% of the citizens (i.e. 64% of the citizens) minus the 5% of white votes (4% of the total citizens): thus, if the legislation took into account all the abstentionist votes and the white votes, Chirac would not have had 82,21% at the second turn, but only 61,23% ^[1] of the votes of all French citizens (which is his real score, opposed to his legal score) — while Le Pen would only had 9,98% ^[2]. On the other hand, almost a quarter of the French citizens didn't vote neither for Chirac nor for Le Pen ^[3] and refused what they called a "pseudo-democratic choice". This wasn't taken into account by French law. However, by its sheer number, they clearly would have had an impact (although none can say which one...) and would create a serious political crisis (how can the leader of a party quietly govern a country with less than 20% of the country's explicit support and 80% of explicit opposition?). The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, which was introduced on October 5, 1958. ... A map of France under the Third Republic, featuring colonies. ...

National procedures

In the United States Congress and many other legislatures, members may vote "present" rather than for or against a bill or resolution, which has the effect of an abstention. Congress in Joint Session. ...

In the United Nations Security Council, representatives of the five countries holding a veto power (including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and the People's Republic of China) sometimes abstain rather than vetoing a measure about which they are less than enthusiastic, particularly if the measure otherwise has broad support; by convention their abstention does not block the measure, despite the wording of Article 27.3 of the UN Charter. In the United Nations General Assembly and its committees, if a majority of those present abstain, a resolution is counted as having failed. The United Nations Security Council is the most powerful organ of the United Nations (UN). ... The word veto comes from Latin and literally means I forbid. ... The United Nations Charter is the constitution of the United Nations. ... United Nations General Assembly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

In the Council of the European Union, an absention on a matter decided by unanimity is in effect a yes vote; on matters decided by qualified majority it is in effect a no vote. The Council of the European Union forms, along with the European Parliament, the legislative arm of the European Union (EU). ... A supermajority or a qualified majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level or type of support which exceeds a simple majority in order to have effect. ...

Endnotes

1. ^ Chirac: 82,21% of the total valid votes at the second turn, minus 5,39% of white votes; times 79,71% of voting citizens equals 61,23% of total French citizens
2. ^ Le Pen: ibid: 17,17% of the total valid votes at the second turn, minus 5,39% white votes; times 79,71% voting citizens equal 9,98% of the total citizens
3. ^ Neither Chirac nor Le Pen: counting the 5,39% white votes — 5,39% times 79,71% voting citizens equals 4,29% of total French citizens — and the abstentionist (non-)vote — 20,29% — a total of 24,58% — 20,29% plus 4,29% equals 24,58%

See also

• fr:Vote blanc (Blank ballot), fr:Vote pondéré (Ponderate vote: taking into account "black votes"), fr:Vote noir (Black vote: instead of a white vote, a negative vote for the option which is considered the worst; in case of the 2002 French presidential election, for example, voting black for Jean-Marie Le Pen — instead of abstention, white vote, vote for Le Pen, or vote for Chirac — would take out a vote for Le Pen (minus one) without giving one to Chirac (separate articles from fr:Abstention)
• Parliamentary procedure
• Elections
• Liberal democracy