The Union Judiciary (UJ) will rule by the end of the week on whether or not abstentions should count as a vote and be reflected in the total vote count or count as non-voting after hearing arguments from both sides Sunday in Shapiro Art Gallery. The decision will effect whether the financial amendment up for a vote several weeks ago passes. "The constitution says voting members of the union," said Class of 2006 Senator, Mark Samburg '07. "That's the exact language in article 12. When you have 591 votes in favor, 180 against, and 133 abstain a question is pretty obviously asked, and that is what is the role of the abstained? My own personal interest is that I felt I abstained for a reason.

"I feel that it's my obligation as a senator to vote, but when the Union fails to adequately convince me of the merits of something they're proposing I'm not going to blindly vote in favor. I abstained for a specific purpose. I want it to be acknowledged and I want it to count."

Samburg, along with other Union Senators, Mitchel Balsam '05, Jonathon Cohen '06, Gabriel Rief '04 and Andrew Katz '06 abstain should count as a vote, and consequently be factored into the total amount of votes when calculating what 2/3 of the vote is.

Union Solicitor General Samuel Dewey '06 who represented the named defendant Union Government in the case said he disagreed with the Union senators' explanation of abstained, the role of the secretary in an elections proceeding and the relevance of article 12 of the Union Constitution.

"The first issue was whether article nine applied to the amendment itself," Dewey said. "Our position was it obviously doesn't because all of the information (in article nine) applies to candidate issues and not an amendment proceeding. The second issue was that the secretary has a lot of discretion under the constitution and the constitution shouldn't second guess his decision if it's one of several decisions based on the law in effect. The third issue is just looking at article 12...it doesn't make sense for the abstained to be a vote."

"Abstain by its very definition is not a vote," Dewey explained.

Samburg further argued that the Union secretary's authority was too open to interpretation.

"Do we want the secretary's discretion to be that broad that he can change the result of the election one way or the other?" Samburg said.

The UJ will announce a decision tentatively this Friday.