A voice vote (or viva voce, from the Latin, "live voice") is a voting method used by deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding verbally.
The voice vote is considered the simplest and quickest of voting methods used by deliberative assemblies. The presiding officer or chair of the assembly will put the question to the assembly, asking first for all those in favor of the motion to indicate so verbally ("aye" or "yes"), and then ask second all those opposed to the motion to indicate so verbally ("no"). The chair will then make an estimate of the count on each side and state what he believes the result to be. Since in close cases this can be imprecise, typically if there is any doubt as to the outcome any member of the assembly may request another vote by a method such as division of the assembly (a standing or rising vote), or a roll call vote. Voice votes are usually not recorded, while others are.
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Famous quotes containing the words voice and/or vote:
“In the courts women have no rights, no voice; nobody speaks for them. I wish woman to have her voice there among the pettifoggers. If it is not a fit place for women, it is unfit for men to be there.”
—Sojourner Truth (1797–1883)
“When Abraham Lincoln penned the immortal emancipation proclamation he did not stop to inquire whether every man and every woman in Southern slavery did or did not want to be free. Whether women do or do not wish to vote does not affect the question of their right to do so.”
—Mary E. Haggart, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)