Zitat:

Based on its experience in the area of referendums, the Venice Commission has decided to recommend that no provision be made for rules on quorums.

A turn-out quorum (minimum percentage) means that it is in the interests of a proposal’s opponents to abstain rather than to vote against it. For example, if 48% of electors are in favour of a proposal, 5% are against it and 47% intend to abstain, the 5% of opponents need only desert the ballot box in order to impose their viewpoint, even though they are very much in the minority. In addition, their absence from the campaign is liable to increase the number of abstentions and thus the likelihood that the quorum will not be reached. Encouraging either abstention or the imposition of a minority viewpoint is not healthy for democracy (point III.7.a). Moreover, there is a great temptation to falsify the turn-out rate in the face of weak opposition.

An approval quorum (acceptance by a minimum percentage of registered voters) may also be inconclusive. It may be so high as to make change excessively difficult. If a text is approved – even by a substantial margin – by a majority of voters without the quorum being reached, the political situation becomes extremely awkward, as the majority will feel that they have been deprived of victory without an adequate reason; the risk of the turn-out rate being falsified is the same as for a turn-out quorum.