Something that TomJoad posted last night, about concerns that data feeds could become "politicized" (aka "I won't vote for you because I disagree with you, not because I disagree with what you said") got me thinking.
Right now we have a binary system for voting. Either a block includes a vote in affirmation of something or it doesn't, which is no different from voting "No"
A more stable structure, at least in my line of thought, would not be binary, but instead ternary -- "Yes", "Maybe", "No". This would only apply to motions and grant proposals, I see no benefit of extending it to rate voting (parking or burn) at this time.
The "Yes" votes would still be the only ones that counted towards passing a motion, grant, or rate, but if there was a third option it could be used to voice a form of "I like what you're proposing but I have reservations..."
That way, someone proposing a motion would be able to see that over the last X blocks, 15% of the votes have been "Yes", 25% have been "Maybe", and the rest have been empty (proxy for "No")
To the protocol this difference would not mean anything. To the community, it would be a way to quantify how well received a motion or grant proposal is. For example:
(currently)
Over the last 10,000 blocks:
2450 YES (24.50%)
7550 NULL (75.50%)
(proposed)
2450 YES (24.50%)
3890 MAYBE (38.90%)
2000 NO (20.00%)
1660 NULL (16.60%)
In both cases the motion or proposal would not be passed until it reached the proper level of consensus, but in the second case the Nu shareholders can see the nuanced way for how other shareholders are voting. Motions or proposal discussions could then be tailored by the initiator to understand why there are so many MAYBE votes and take steps to refine the motion or the proposal to address those concerns.