I know some chains have this option not sure for Cosmos hub has it, but if you were to remove abstain tomorrow there still exist a workaround. I am talking about weighted votes. In theory using CLI you could vote 75% yes and 25% no, or in this case 50-50 and it could count as an abstain in a way.
While I agree that sometimes the abstain option is abused often, removing it would do more harm than good.
For example, constant governance participation is considered a good practice and a good criteria for choosing a validator. If a validator has a proposal that they are legally unable to vote on without getting sanctioned, or they are one of the parties involved so they cannot vote without it causing a conflict of interest, or other cases I am pretty sure might happen. And while not voting for the proposal can basically reach the same outcome (except for not being counted for quorum), it actually shows the validator made their choice and voted, while when the validator hasnāt voted it may just show that it doesnāt care about governance. Not having a separate abstain vote makes it impossible to differentiate a conscious validator choice and ignorance about the governance in general and this specific proposal.
If this proposal would go live on chain as is, I would vote ānoā, as it makes more harm than good, but Iām all in for the discussion about how it can be changed without breaking existing mechanics, as thereās definitely a lot to think about and reconsider.
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If a validator cannot abstain,
The validator will weight vote 50/50 yes/no and it will be the same
Abstain is not a option to remove
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Hello Sir Gadikian - hope all is well with you.
The Top 20 Validators should be voting abstain, no? To further decentralization.
I donāt believe we should be removing abstain for this reason.
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This doesnāt even make a little sense. Can you explain?
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How about this as a compromise - preserve abstain as a vote option to enable validators to express conflicts of interest, when they exist.
Many have contractual obligations to vote on % of proposals.
Remove abstain from counting towards quorum.
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Thatās what the changes did.
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thatās not enough.
if blank vote doesnāt count anymore in the quorum, it should have some super power (as NWV has) in some exceptional conditions.
otherwise you nuke it without nuking it.
it would solve an issue by ignoring and making meaningless a fair part of voters.
blank vote from delegators (at least) should be able to weight and mean something when it gets some relative majority.
I thought that blank didnāt have any meaning?
yeah thatās why your whole proposal is wrong and has already been amended
Itās been amended to make it more correct.
Is there a problem with it?
itās been amended to make it more politically correct.
its purpose remain the same.
Agree that
A) 90% of staked ATOM voting abstain with 6% yes and 4% no resulting in a proposal passing is not a good thing
B) There are legitimate uses of Abstain such as for conflict of interest, not having a strong opinion but actively considering and following the proposal & developments around it. Contributing to Quorum to help proposals pass (if it would not be hit often without abstain exisiting)
Currently I do not see the abstain vote as an issue that can be fixed by simply removing it. @David_Crosnest and others make a good point that without abstain, validators can still vote 50/50 on YES/NO to effectively the same result, so then the question is which is better, voting abstain or voting 50/50? I dont see what removing abstain from the voting option can achieve here.
Instead perhaps we can only really hold validators socially accountable to the fact that they often abstain from voting on proposals and encourage them to vote yes or no more often to contribute to proposals in a more meaningful way
I appreciate the discussion around the current use of abstain and whether it should be revised, modified in its implications or removed completely. Cosmos governance can be improved and the only way it can happen is through conversations such as this, followed by actions to adjust the process & on-chain implementation.
Great so check it out, can you give me one example of a time when holding a validators socially accountable has proven to be an effective sanction?
I wasnt necessarily saying it was effective, but Iām saying that removing abstain is quite possibly less effective since a 50/50 split between yes/no votes will mean it has no effect and therefore the best we have is still holding validators socially accountable in this situation.
Thanks for the discussion as always 
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So okay I guess what I would suggest is that we toss out the idea of social sanction because we both agree that it doesnāt work, and then we work on other things that might have a chance of working
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Others have mentioned why Abstain is useful (conflicts of interest, jurisdictional/regulatory compliance, etc.), and Iād add that Abstain votes can be regarded as a proxy for the overall legitimacy of particular policies which are neither spam nor maliciousājust like not voting in elections can be a proxy for the legitimacy of the election/electoral process itself. A policy passed with 90% abstain, 6% yes, and 4% no is likely easy to reverse or amend by future governance, though of course this depends.
Cutting Abstainās weight to quorum may have other effects, but I havenāt analyzed the voting patterns to figure out what.
What Iād suggest instead of removing Abstain or discounting Abstain to quorum is some sort of (automated, not governance-based) slashing for validators who miss votes or vote Abstain beyond certain thresholds, with an option for those slashed by repetitive Abstaining to appeal (should they have legitimate reasons for it). Slashed funds like this would need to be held in escrow for a duration to allow appeals to be processed.
Alternatively/additionally, consider automating a dynamic vote system where the more Abstains are present, the higher the passing threshold is requiredāso if, say, <25% Abstain, then the standard bare majority rule applies, but for every 5% Abstain over that, a 3% larger majority is required to pass. So at 90% Abstain, an 89% approval threshold would need to be met to pass a proposal. This would lean into the idea that Abstain is a proxy for overall legitimacy, but not a decision about spam/malicious actions (which is still NWV).
many have mentioned why abstain is useful, and what could be working and improving modifications. but i guess the authors donāt care.
Always appreciate engaging with you, sir. Thank you for your response. 
Those in TOP 20 have most voting power. Abstain vote helps with balance (for now).
To avoid any hostile takeover via governance - TOP 20 could be required to vote abstain (plug: ATOM One Constitution conversation) in respects to ensuring smaller validators voices to be fully heard/validated, W/O fear of companies with large amount of capital to swoop in and do itās greedy thing.
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*just brainstorming
what if we add 2/3 threshold to abstain (like NWV have), and if it reached by the end of voting prop should either counted as NO, or loop to the new round of voting
seems like main concern among replies mention āno one like when prop with 90% asatain, 6% yes and 4% no passesā
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