A split vote is normally used synonymously with "

deadlock Deadlock commonly refers to: * Deadlock (computer science), a situation where two processes are each waiting for the other to finish * Deadlock (locksmithing) or deadbolt, a physical door locking mechanism * Political deadlock or gridlock, a si ...

ed", "hung", or "evenly split" vote. It indicates a vote in which no decision can be made, as neither side has the majority. The term can be used to indicate dissent by as little as a single vote, if a unanimous vote is required. If a

casting vote A casting vote is a vote that someone may exercise to resolve a tied vote in a deliberative body. A casting vote is typically by the presiding officer of a council, legislative body, committee, etc., and may only be exercised to break a deadlock ...

is available, this may be used to break the deadlock. In other cases it may result in situations such as hung juries or

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system (typically employing Majoritarian representation, majoritarian electoral systems) to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing ...

s. A split vote may arise from

vote splitting In social choice theory and politics, a spoiler effect happens when a losing candidate affects the results of an election simply by participating. Voting rules that are not affected by spoilers are said to be spoilerproof. The frequency and se ...

, which occurs in an

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

when the existence of two or more similar candidates reduces the

vote Voting is the process of choosing officials or policies by casting a ballot, a document used by people to formally express their preferences. Republics and representative democracies are governments where the population chooses representative ...

s received by each of them, reducing the chances of any one of them winning against another, significantly different, candidate. In systems that require a winning candidate to receive a majority of votes, this may result in a

runoff election The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...

See also