According to the writer of the Standards Bog, here, Andy Updegrove, Vole seems to have drafted some of its tame countries to vote in favour of the standard.

Updegrove said that normally the vote would have been negative to Vole by now with most countries voting against Microsoft. But for some reason 11 countries, who had previously just had an observer status, have become full members.

Without those extra 11 new countries, it would only require 10 votes to make an overall vote to approve the OOXML standard impossible under the ISO rules.

However the 11 new countries are refusing to say how they will vote. These include Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most people seem to think that these have been put there by Vole to make sure the standard gets pushed through.

If they are all in favour of Vole, then they could force a majority vote and Microsoft's standard could be accepted. µ