How to count votes at a meeting or club election: show of hands, paper ballots and two tellers

The four ways to take a vote, and which ones get counted

A meeting votes by voice, by show of hands, by rising or by ballot, and only the last three produce a number. In a voice vote the chair judges which side was louder and announces it; nothing is counted. The public-domain 1915 text of Robert's Rules of Order Revised, section 46, calls voice "the usual method of taking a vote", and gives the steps up from it when the result is in doubt.

The 1915 text sets out the escalation. If a voice vote does not settle it, the chair asks each side to rise, and if that is still unclear asks those in favour to "rise and stand until counted", with the chair or secretary counting and tellers in a very large assembly. "In small assemblies a show of hands may be substituted for a rising vote." Any single member may require a division, which retakes the vote by rising, and any member may move that the vote be counted.

A ballot is the only secret method, and so the only one where the tellers handle evidence that can be checked again. In a ballot the chair votes too: the 1915 text says the chair "should always vote in case of a ballot", and the current Robert's Rules FAQ, on the official site of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, names the ballot as one of the two cases where the chair of an assembly votes.

Majority means more than half of the votes cast

A majority is more than half of the votes cast, and the bylaws may name a different base. The official Robert's Rules FAQ, answering from the 12th edition, says "majority" means "simply, more than half", and warns that "50 percent plus one" causes problems. Its example: 17 votes cast, 9 in favour and 8 against. Half of 17 is 8.5, so 9 is a majority; 50% plus one is 9.5, which read literally demands 10 and defeats a motion that passed.

The American Institute of Parliamentarians teaches the same default: a July 2025 presentation on the American Institute of Parliamentarians' site defines the unqualified majority as "more than half the legal votes cast by members present and voting excluding abstentions". Change the words in the bylaws and the number needed changes with them.

The two-thirds column is the 1915 text's own illustration in section 48: "a two-thirds vote would be 10; a two-thirds vote of the members present would be 14; and a vote of two-thirds of the members would be 47." The majority column is the same arithmetic: the smallest whole number above half. Two thirds is never rounded down; the FAQ's test is that the votes in favour must be at least double the votes against, so 101 votes cast with 67 in favour fails and 68 passes.

Law can set the base too. For a UK company, a resolution on a show of hands at a meeting passes by "a simple majority of the votes cast by those entitled to vote" under section 282(3) of the Companies Act 2006, and a special resolution needs "not less than 75% of the votes cast" under section 283(4). A written resolution, with no meeting, needs a majority of "the total voting rights of eligible members", which is the whole-membership base.

Abstentions and blank ballots

An abstention is not a vote, so under a majority of the votes cast it changes nothing. The Robert's Rules FAQ puts it plainly: "an abstention is not a vote and is not counted as a vote." The same answer gives the exception: where the rule is a majority or two thirds "of the members present" or of the entire membership, an abstention "will have the same effect as a 'no' vote", because the number needed is fixed before anyone votes.

A worked example. Thirty members are present. On a motion, 14 vote yes, 12 vote no and 4 abstain.

The first column is the point. Under votes cast, abstaining is the same as not being there, and different from voting no: four abstentions leave the motion adopted, four no votes defeat it. Under members present, the abstainers raised the bar from 14 to 16 without casting a vote.

The AIP presentation gives a sharper case from a board. Nine members, a quorum of five, and a rule requiring a "majority of a quorum", which is 3. Five attend: 2 vote yes, 1 votes no, 2 abstain. Two thirds of those voting said yes, and the motion is still defeated, because 2 is short of 3.

Blank ballots follow the same logic. The 1915 text says "all blanks are ignored as simply waste paper, and are not reported", and that a blank folded with a marked ballot does not spoil it. Count blank papers when you check the number of papers against the number of voters, then leave them out of the votes cast.

How to count a show of hands or a rising vote

Two tellers count the same hands at the same time, separately, and the vote is not announced until their numbers agree. One count by one person cannot be checked; two independent counts can.

1. Know the number entitled to vote first. Count the voting members present before the vote, with the method in the headcount guide. Votes for and against together can never exceed it.
2. Take the side in favour, then the side against. Ask those in favour to raise a hand, or to stand, and to stay that way until both tellers have finished.
3. Count by rows, in the same order. Each teller keeps their own tally, on paper or on the yes/no counter on their own phone, tapping Y for each hand in favour and, on the second count, N for each hand against. Undo takes back a double tap without touching the other side.
4. Compare before anyone lowers a hand. If the two numbers differ, count again. Accept the figure when two consecutive counts agree, the test the UK Electoral Commission sets for checking the number of papers in a ballot box: a box with a variance is "recounted at least twice, until the same number of ballot papers is counted on two consecutive occasions" (Part E guidance).
5. Report two numbers, for and against. The total on the counter is the votes cast. Abstentions need not be counted unless the bylaws use a members-present base, in which case the base is the headcount from step 1.

A rising vote is easier to count accurately than hands, because a standing person cannot half-raise an arm or lower it while the teller is still counting the row. That is why the 1915 text uses it when a voice vote is in doubt and allows hands only in small assemblies.

One thing the yes/no counter shows does not apply here. Its percentage range is a margin of error for a sample, and a vote is not a sample: every member who voted was counted. The sampling arithmetic belongs to a survey, covered in how many people to survey.

How to count paper ballots with two tellers

Count the papers before you read them, read each one aloud once, and keep two tallies that must match at every checkpoint. The arrangement is the one Texas prescribes for hand-counting public elections in its Hand Counting Procedures: a counting team has one caller who "announces the name of each candidate", and talliers who record each vote on a tally list; the lists are compared periodically, and a discrepancy that cannot be resolved means the ballots are recounted.

1. Close the vote. The chair asks "Have all voted who wish to?" and, with no answer, declares the polls closed (1915 text, section 46). If members handed their ballots to a teller, the tellers have a list of who voted.
2. Count the papers, unopened. The number must match the number of members recorded as voting. If it does not, count again until two counts agree, and record any difference.
3. Set the blanks aside. Count them, note the number for the reconciliation, and leave them out of everything else.
4. Read and tally. One teller unfolds each ballot and reads it aloud; two tellers each mark it on their own tally, on a tally sheet or a multi counter with one named counter per candidate and one for illegal votes.
5. Check every stack of 25. After each 25 ballots the two tallies are compared. A difference is found in a stack of 25 instead of across the whole count.
6. Set aside doubtful ballots. Put any ballot the reader is unsure of in a separate pile and decide it with all the tellers present, by the voter's intention.
7. Reconcile. Each candidate's votes plus the illegal votes must equal the votes cast, and the votes cast plus the blanks must equal the papers counted in step 2.

For doubtful ballots, the UK test is a sound one to borrow. The Electoral Commission's guide to doubtful ballot papers says a paper must not be rejected because it is "not marked in the proper place", "marked other than by a cross" or "marked by more than one mark" if the intention for one candidate "clearly appears", and that adjudication should happen "regularly throughout the count", not at the end. A tick beside a name is a vote for that name; two names ticked for one place is not a vote for either.

The tellers' report, worked with numbers

The tellers' report states the votes cast, the number necessary for election, each candidate's votes and any illegal votes, and the chair, not the tellers, declares who is elected. The form in the 1915 text lists illegal votes "after the legal votes", and they are part of the number of votes cast. The teller "reads the report and hands it to the chairman, … without saying who is elected."

Nobody is elected on that report. Mr. C has more than half of all the votes, but he is ineligible, so his 50 are illegal; they still count in the 96, which is why 49 are needed and Mr. A's 37 fall short. The members ballot again.

Now a club election for secretary. Sixty-four members are recorded as voting, and the tellers count 64 papers in the box. Two are blank. One names someone who is not a member, which makes it an illegal vote.

The arithmetic, line by line:

• Papers counted: 64, matching the 64 members recorded as voting.
• Votes cast: 64 papers less 2 blanks is 62. The blanks are not reported.
• Necessary for election: half of 62 is 31, and more than half is 32.
• Check: 33 + 24 + 4 + 1 = 62, the votes cast. Candidate A has 33, one more than needed, and the chair declares A elected.

Change two ballots and the illegal vote decides it. Had the count been A 31, B 26, C 4 and the illegal vote 1, the votes cast are still 62, 32 are still needed, and nobody is elected. Drop the illegal vote from the total, as public elections do with rejected papers, and the base becomes 61, the number needed falls to 31, and A would be declared elected on a count where 31 of 62 voters chose someone else. Under Robert's Rules it is a second ballot. Percentages are another matter: a share of the vote is usually stated against the valid votes only, the choice set out on the tally to percentage calculator.

Four counting beliefs that are wrong

The commonest errors at a meeting count are definitions, not arithmetic.

• "Majority means 50% plus one." It means more than half. On an odd total the two give different answers: of 17 votes, 9 is a majority.
• "Abstaining is the same as voting no." Only when the bylaws count members present or the whole membership. Under votes cast an abstention has no effect.
• "The chair only votes to break a tie." The Robert's Rules FAQ answers that directly: "No, it is not true that the president can vote only to break a tie." A tie on a motion means it is lost, so the chair may also vote to make a tie.
• "The candidate with the most votes wins." Only if the bylaws allow election by plurality. Otherwise a candidate needs a majority, and the members keep balloting until one has it; the AIP presentation adds that bylaws should say how a deadlock ends.

What this guide does not cover

Your bylaws, standing orders and any law that governs your organisation override every default here. A parliamentary code such as Robert's Rules applies only where an organisation has adopted it, and its own bylaws come first; company, trade union, charity, condominium and public elections follow their own statutes. Check whether your bylaws set a different base, allow plurality, permit proxies, or require a ballot for elections.

This guide does not cover proxy voting, postal or online voting, ranked or preferential ballots, weighted votes or voting by shares on a poll. Paragraph citations to the 12th edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised are not given here because its text is not published online; the FAQ quotations are from the official site, and the procedure quotations are from the 1915 edition, read on 4 November 2026.

Simple Online Counter is a free, browser-based set of counters; its yes/no counter keeps two running tallies with undo, and its multi counter keeps one named tally per candidate, both stored only in the browser.