Check quorum and ballot denominators before a group choice

A ballot can meet an attendance requirement without meeting its approval rule. Check both before describing a group choice as accepted. This manual exercise uses invented reviewers and a fixed ballot, recorded in an ordinary document. It does not create a Kiguri poll or establish the rules your organization should use.

Declare the rules before reading the answers

Define who is eligible, how many must be present, which responses are permitted, and what approval means. Keep attendance quorum separate from the voting threshold. A quorum says enough eligible people participated under the stated rule; it does not say that a proposal received enough support.

For this fictional exercise, five reviewers are eligible and at least four must be present. Compare two alternative approval contracts: a strict majority of valid yes/no votes, or a strict majority of all eligible reviewers. These are deliberately different rules. Do not choose between them after seeing which one produces the desired outcome.

Account for each person once

Use an invented ballot with four present reviewers: two answer yes, one answers no, and one abstains. The fifth reviewer is absent. Record five eligible people, four present, three valid yes/no votes, and two yes votes. Include the abstention and absence explicitly rather than losing them while summarizing.

Under this exercise's contract, an abstention counts toward presence but not the valid yes/no denominator. Absence supplies neither a vote nor consent. If your actual agreed process treats either differently, record that rule instead of importing the exercise's convention silently.

Calculate the outcome with the declared denominator

The quorum of four is satisfied. Under a strict majority of the three valid votes, two yes votes are enough: two is greater than half of three. Under a strict majority of all five eligible reviewers, three yes votes are required. Two yes votes do not satisfy that second contract.

Write the counts and rule beside each result. Saying the majority agreed hides which population was counted. A record containing only two in favor cannot distinguish these outcomes. Also avoid rounding a fraction to make a threshold easier to meet; strict majority means greater than half, not equal to it.

Check ties and insufficient participation

Try a separate fictional case with four eligible people, all present, two yes and two no. A strict majority of valid votes is not reached. If the contract has no tie procedure, record no accepted decision rather than giving the organizer an invented deciding vote.

Return to the five-person case and imagine only three present. The quorum fails even if all three vote yes. Keep that result separate from the approval arithmetic. A favorable vote does not repair insufficient participation when the announced contract requires four people present.

Leave a rule-specific decision record

Retain the eligible set, presence count, response categories, chosen denominator, threshold, and unresolved conditions. Ask another reader to reconstruct the outcome without a spoken explanation. If they count the abstention as no or treat absence as agreement, clarify the record.

This exercise checks whether a ballot follows its stated rules, not whether those rules are fair, legally applicable, or appropriate for every decision. Actual authority remains with your established process. The finish condition is a reproducible result under the announced contract, including no decision when its requirements are unmet.