Imagine for a second. that you are deciding the
absolute most important political elections in
your entire country. But instead of, you know,
filling out a ballot or pulling a lever or even
sending in a secure piece of mail, the winner
is chosen based entirely on who the crowd screams
for the loudest. Wow. Literally a popularity
contest decided by sheer volume. Exactly. Just
volume. Today, we are jumping into a deep dive
on the mechanics, the wild history and the highly
surprising modern applications. of the voice
vote or, as it is formally known, acclamation.
And we're pulling from a really comprehensive
Wikipedia article on the subject for this deep
dive. Yeah, it's a great source. And our mission
today is to figure out how this seemingly archaic
method, I mean, just standing in a room and yelling
I or no somehow remains the quickest, the most
common, and sometimes the absolute most controversial
way that deliberative assemblies make decisions
right now, today. It is a fascinating contradiction
when you really look at it. We live in an era
of... of digital cryptography, secure servers,
instant electronic tabulation. Yet the fundamental
machinery of our laws, our local councils, even
massive international organizations. often still
relies on a group of people just using their
vocal cords to push a decision forward. That
contradiction is exactly why we need to lay the
table here. Let's get the basic definition down.
A voice vote comes from the Latin term viva voce,
which translates to by live voice. It's a voting
method where a group responds vocally all at
once. The entire room just speaks their choice
into the air. Hearing that Latin term, it sounds
awfully similar to another process you hear about
in politics, a viva voce roll call vote. Right,
which causes endless confusion. Yeah, because
if I'm thinking about the logistics, those have
to be entirely different mechanisms. A voice
vote is this massive, chaotic group shout. But
a roll call, even if spoken aloud, is going down
a list person by person. That is a crucial distinction
to make right at the top. They share a Latin
root, but the mechanics are worlds apart. A viva
voce roll call vote removes the anonymity. Because
they call your name. Exactly. The clerk calls
your name, you stand up or speak into a microphone,
and your specific choice goes into the permanent
public record. The traditional voice vote, though,
the collective shout, is entirely anonymous.
It's just a wave of sound. A wave of sound where
individual voices blend into a single, unrecorded
roar. Okay, let's unpack this. How does a standard
voice vote actually work in practice? We are
talking about a very streamlined two -step process.
The presiding officer or the chair of the assembly
puts the question to the room. Right. First,
they ask everyone who is in favor of the motion
to indicate so orally. You will usually hear
them say something like, all those in favor say
aye. Or sometimes yay. Yeah, yeah. Then they
flip it and ask everyone who is opposed to the
motion to do the same thing, usually by saying
no or nay. And after both sides have had their
turn to make some noise, the chair just, they
just listen. They estimate the count on each
side based on the volume and then declare what
they believe the result to be. The entire system
is entirely reliant on human perception. The
chair is making a real -time, high -stakes judgment
call based on nothing but sound waves hitting
their ears. Usually in a cavernous echoing room,
right? Exactly. And while our minds immediately
jump to politicians in grand legislative chambers
wearing suits, The practical applications of
this method are woven into the fabric of everyday
life for all of us. Voice votes are everywhere
once you start looking for them. I mean, think
about your own life outside of any government
building. Like local events. Yeah. Have you ever
been to a battle of the bands or a spectator
sport where the audience gets to choose the most
valuable player or the man of the match? Or even
a local dog show picking best in show. Perfect
example. The MC points to the first option. The
crowd cheers. They point to the second. The crowd
roars. The MC judges the loudest reaction and
hands out the trophy. And if you have ever participated
in that, you have participated in a formal voice
vote. So why is it so common? The reason this
method scales so perfectly, from a local pub's
trivia night all the way up to national parliaments,
is purely practical. It is considered the simplest
and quickest method. Because time is an incredibly
scarce resource in any deliberative body. Right.
When you have an assembly of hundreds of people
individually counting every single vote for every
minor procedural step, every motion to recess,
every motion to approve the previous day's minutes,
it would completely paralyze the institution.
You'd never get anything done. Never. The voice
vote is the ultimate lubricant for bureaucracy.
It is perfect for situations where there's already
wide agreement or unanimity in the room. You
just need to quickly confirm the consensus and
move on. But the history of this quick and easy
method goes back to a time when it was the absolute
main event. We have to take you back to ancient
Greece, specifically 7th century BC Sparta. Ah,
yes. We're talking about the election of the
members of the Jerusia, the Spartan Council of
Elders. This was the pinnacle of their political
hierarchy. These were lifetime appointments.
The stakes for these elections were monumental,
shaping the direction of Spartan society, warfare,
law. And the way they elected these vital leaders
was literally conducted by a shouting match.
It's wild to picture. Paint the physical scene
for us based on the sources. Okay, you have the
massive assembly of citizens gathered. Meanwhile...
A special jury of a few selected people is taken
and locked inside a nearby stone room. Locked
away. Locked away specifically so they are visually
isolated. They cannot see the candidates at all.
All they can do is sit in the dark and hear the
muffled noise of the crowd outside. And out in
the open assembly, the candidates are paraded
in front of the audience one after another. And
they do this completely silently. No campaign
speeches. No grandstanding. They just walk out
and stand there. What's fascinating here is how
this transforms the crowd's reaction into a sophisticated
metric. It was essentially an early form of approval
voting. The locked away jury was tasked with
establishing a ranking of all the candidates
based purely on assessing the loudness of the
assembly's acclamations to each silent figure.
They ranked them by volume. The loudest one.
The candidates who received the most sustained,
deafening shouts were declared elected. So wait.
If they are just judging the loudest volume for
a series of candidates, they aren't just voting
yes or no on a single issue. They are ranking
a whole field of options. You can cheer for as
many candidates as you like, but your vocal cords
only have so much stamina. Just imagine being
on that jury, staring at a stone wall, trying
to decide if the third roar of the afternoon
was slightly more deafening than the fifth roar.
It is raw democracy in its most chaotic form.
You are relying entirely on the collective lung
capacity of the populace to build a government.
It really is. It captures the visceral energy
of ancient politics perfectly. But it also highlights
the core inescapable issue with the voice vote,
which is precision. When you are measuring political
will by the sheer physical force of sound, you
are opening the door to a multitude of inherent
structural disadvantages. Here's where it gets
really interesting. because you don't have to
look hard to see the glaring flaws outlined in
the text not at all First and foremost, as we
just saw with the Spartans, the volume is only
ever estimated. It is never actually measured
with sound level meters. Right. You don't see
parliamentary speakers pulling out decibel meters
and charting the waveforms. The chair is just
using their ears and their gut feeling. And furthermore,
it ruins any chance of a secret ballot. Completely
destroys it. You have to make a physical audible
signal in an open room surrounded by your peers,
your colleagues and potentially your political
rivals. The social pressure is immense. If you
are voting on something. highly contentious,
having to shout your true opinion for everyone
within a 20 -foot radius to hear forces public
conformity in a way that a private paper ballot
specifically prevents. And there is a physical
bias built into the system that gives an unfair
advantage to people who simply have naturally
louder voices. Even if you did bring in that
decibel meter to objectively measure the sound,
a coalition of ten soft -spoken people might
get completely drowned out by three people across
the aisle who happen to project beautifully from
their diaphragm. You are conflating volume with
majority. Exactly. This raises an important question.
If the system is so delightfully imprecise and
prone to physical bias, how does it survive as
the default mechanism in modern governance? Why
do we keep using it? The answer lies in the concept
of plausible deniability. Plausible deniability.
Okay, explain that dynamic. Because the chair
is just estimating. It gives them a massive amount
of unwritten power, gives them the cover to falsify
the result if they personally disagree with it.
Oh, wow. So if the eyes and the nays are even
somewhat close in volume, the chair can just
say, well, it sounded to me like the nays were
louder. Precisely. They can effectively steer
the result to suit their political preference.
And they can just claim they heard it differently
from where they were sitting up on the dais.
Which is exactly why any functional deliberative
assembly has to build in fail -safes. Yes. To
prevent tyranny by the chair, assemblies have
backup plans. If a member doubts the outcome,
they can demand another, more precise method
of voting. Usually this takes the form of a division
of the assembly. A standing or rising vote. Right.
It strips away the anonymity. Everyone has to
physically stand up to be visually counted. You
cannot fake the math when human bodies are literally
standing right in front of you. Or they can demand
a roll call vote. But different countries put
their own spin on the rules for these fail -safes,
which proves just how pervasive the voice vote
really is. Let's do a rapid -fire global tour
to see how this plays out. Let's start in the
United States. According to Roberts' Rules of
Order, specifically the 11th edition, the voice
vote is the regular method for majority votes.
And its usage is staggering. In state legislatures
across the country, an estimated 95 % of all
resolutions are passed by a unanimous voice vote.
95 % sounds like an authoritarian rubber stamp
until you realize what they are actually voting
on. It's mostly routine stuff. Commemorating
a town's bicentennial, recognizing a retiring
local fire chief. Things like that. You simply
do not need a grueling roll call to agree that
the local firefighters did a good job. The voice
vote clears the desk. Even in Congress, it handles
the routine. But if things get contentious, it
takes one fifth of the members present to demand
a recorded vote if they disagree with the chair's
call. Now, if we cross the Atlantic to the United
Kingdom, the theatricality is entirely different.
In the House of Commons, it's called collecting
the voices. I love that terminology, collecting
the voices. The speaker declares, I think the
eyes have it, or I think the nose have it. And
if they are challenged by the room... They yell
a very specific command. Division, clear the
lobbies. Division. Clear the lobbies. That is
so dramatic. And then just down the hall in the
House of Lords, it takes on this uniquely polite
tone. The lords do not yell aye or nay. No. Instead,
lords say content or not content. Content or
not content. And if challenged, the command is
division. Clear the bar. It's a great polite
quirk. And we see variations in the Commonwealth
thresholds, too. Canada requires five members
to demand a recorded vote. Australia requires
two. But let's look at India, known as the Jhanimat.
It is used extensively in the Luksaba and the
Rajasaba. But there is a really vital contextual
detail from the text about how it functions there.
It's used not just for white agreement, but sometimes
when the house is not in order. When the house
is not in order, what does that look like? Imagine
an assembly in a state of severe disruption.
Members protesting, chanting. Conducting a formal
roll call in that environment is practically
impossible. Right, because nobody can hear anything.
We saw a clear example of this during the chaotic
formation of the Indian state of Telangana in
2014. Exactly. The assembly was deeply fractured.
In that chaotic environment, the voice vote bypassed
the gridlock of counting and was used as a blunt
procedural instrument to push the decision forward
through the sheer noise of the disruption. So
what does this all mean? We have spent... Thousands
of years optimizing the act of screaming at each
other to make rules. Sure. But there is an organization
that looked at this entire history, looked at
the inherent flaws of shouting, and introduced
a brilliant pivot. The ITF. The Internet Engineering
Task Force. When this global community of network
designers and researchers needs to estimate participants'
positions on issues, they don't shout, they use
humming. They hum. as a voice vote method if
we connect this to the bigger picture humming
removes the aggressive loudness advantage of
shouting because it's physically very difficult
for one person to hum aggressively enough to
drown out 10 other people right it offers a more
collective harmonic way to gauge consensus it's
a perfect example for you to think about how
your own workplace measures agreement it fundamentally
changes the entire psychological atmosphere of
the room You aren't conquering the other side
with your volume. It is a beautiful synthesis
of the journey we have been on today. From Spartan
elders elected by screams. To British lords politely
declaring they are content. All the way to modern
internet engineers humming in unison. Despite
all our incredible technological advancements,
human voices remain the ultimate, quickest tool
we have for collective decision making. They
really do. But before we wrap up, we want to
leave you with one final, fascinating, unmentioned
detail from the sources to mull over regarding
the rules in New Zealand. Ah, the New Zealand
rules. In New Zealand's parliament, if a voice
vote is called, members of the losing side or
abstainers are fully entitled to demand a formal
test of opinion. A recount, essentially. That
makes sense. However, supporters of the side
declared to have won are strictly not allowed
to demand one. I want you to let that specific
quirk sink in for a second. Why would a winning
side ever want to demand a recount anyway? They
already have the victory. It's a great question.
perhaps to force their opponent's embarrassing
loss onto the permanent recorded record. It is
a brilliant piece of psychological and procedural
strategy to think about the next time you are
in a competitive group setting. Thank you so
much for joining us on this deep dive into the
surprisingly complex world of the voice vote.
Keep questioning the process and we will catch
you next time.