a formal choice made in an election, meeting, or poll
Lena dropped her paper vote into the clear ballot box.
Each vote matters when the race is close.
✦ From Latin votum, later meaning a formal choice in English from the 15th century.
to cast a ballot or make a formal choice in an election or poll
Citizens lined up early to vote in the national election.
You must register before you can vote.
✦ Verb sense recorded from the mid-15th century, originally in assemblies and parliaments.
present participle of vote: choosing between options in an election or decision-making process
Citizens are voting today to elect a new mayor.
The committee is voting on the budget proposal right now.
the legal right to take part in elections; suffrage
Many people fought hard so that every citizen could have the vote.
Young adults gained the vote at age eighteen in many countries.
✦ Meaning "right to vote" emerged in the 18th century as democratic systems grew.
to choose someone or something by a formal or official vote
The shareholders voted her chairman of the board.
Congress voted the bill into law.
✦ Use in the sense of “elect” dates from the 16th century.
(informal) to state a strong preference or suggestion
I vote we order pizza for dinner.
The team voted him MVP for his outstanding play.
✦ Informal sense developed in American English in the late 19th century.
in computing or electronics, a device or software routine that compares several redundant inputs and outputs the value held by the majority of them
A triple-modular-redundancy system uses a voter to pick the majority signal.
If one sensor fails, the software voter still delivers a reliable result.
✦ extended from the political sense: the device "votes" by selecting the majority input; term appears in reliability engineering literature from the 1960s
