Ambrogio Piazzoni, a papal historian, told reporters last week that he could think of no examples of cardinals who had refrained from voting for anything other than health reasons, or from the pressures of different governments in past years.
During the last four-year council term, of the 559 instances when aldermen refrained from voting on measures that touched on their personal interests, more than 300 of them were invoked by Mr. Burke.
It may well be that one or more justices sensitive to the breathtaking violation of Mr. Masri's rights, and the evident breaking of American law, refrained from voting to accept his case as a matter of strategy.
Two Republican senators, Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and John W. Warner of Virginia, opposed the budget and were on the Senate floor for the roll call, but refrained from voting out of deference to two Democrats who were absent because of illness: Senators Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
The board ultimately refrained from voting on a fee charge pending further negotiations.
He refrained from voting on the anti-third term resolution that overwhelmingly passed the House that same year, believing that to vote for it would look self-interested.
Militant Serbian leaders in Croatia called for their followers to refrain from voting.
Rather, it is that they will rally around a protest candidate or will refrain from voting all together.
And by overwhelmingly refraining from voting in municipal elections, even when that right exists, Palestinians of East Jerusalem are emphatically agreeing.
Non-English MPs would then adopt a self-denying ordinance by refraining from voting on English legislation when it comes to the floor of the House.
There may even be times when refraining from voting a proxy is in the client's best interest, such as when the adviser determines that the cost of voting the proxy exceeds the expected benefit to the client.
