It's all over the news today that OOXML will probably be approved as an ISO standard this week. Plenty of links to the coverage in this discussion on Slashdot. As is now common with OOXML, there are also reports of hair-raising irregularities in the voting processes of various countries.

If Microsoft gets this OOXML format "approved", it will be by irregularities in the voting, it seems. Here's more on what happened in Germany and a report on what is being called a scandal in Norway. And another odd process in Croatia.

Due to 'serious irregularities,' Norway's OOXML vote could be suspended pending an investigation, adding further intrigue to the ongoing standards debate

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote "yes" on ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.

One little detail that many people do not know about the current voting rules on Microsoft’s Office product specification OOXML, now at the end of the Five Month Ballot for JTC1, is that there are two main classes of voters: “P” members and “O” members.

As you will recall, the Executive Board (EB) of INCITS, the US voting body on OOXML in the ISO/IEC JTC1, posted two simultaneous, seven day written ballots - one to approve, with comments, and one to abstain, again with comments. The votes have now been received back. and are as follows:

"As you will recall, V1, the INCITS Technical Committee that addresses document format standards, was unable to reach consensus on a recommended US vote to either approve or reject DIS 29500, the draft ISO/IEC standard that describes Microsoft's OOXML formats. As expected, Microsoft is seeking to gain a US vote in favor of OOXML..."

"Brazil, India, and China, which together count for more than a third of the world's population, all voted against Office Open XML in voting last week before the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Russia was the only member of the so-called BRIC nations to vote in favor of ISO ratification for OOXML."

OpenDocument and OOXMLWith fewer than 48 hours to go throughout most of the world, only a small percentage of the 87 countries that voted last summer on OOXML have announced whether they will stand by, or change, the votes that they cast during the original six month voting period.