Definition
In legal and procedural contexts, TIE refers to an equality of votes or scores between two or more candidates or positions such that no outcome can be determined from the count alone. The term carries distinct meanings depending on the context in which voting occurs.
1. Electoral tie. When two candidates for an office receive an identical number of votes, neither is elected. The tie does not produce a victor by operation of the vote itself; external resolution mechanisms—such as a runoff election, lot, coin toss, or other statutory procedure—are required to determine the result.
2. Deliberative assembly tie. When a question put to a deliberative body—a legislature, board, committee, or similar body—receives an equal number of affirmative and negative votes, the question fails. A tie vote does not pass a motion; the burden rests on affirmative votes to carry a measure, and equality is insufficient to meet that burden. This is often summarized as "a tie goes to the negative."
3. Tiebreaking authority. Many governing instruments—constitutions, bylaws, statutes—assign tiebreaking power to a presiding officer, often called a casting vote. The vice president of the United States, for example, holds constitutional authority to cast a tiebreaking vote in the Senate. Without such authority expressly granted, a presiding officer does not ordinarily vote.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To have the same score or position as another in a competition or ordering; also, to twist or fasten with string or cord.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): An equality in numbers, as of votes, scores, etc., which prevents either party from being victorious; equality in any contest, as a race. Also: a bond or obligation, moral or legal.
In ordinary English, a tie is simply a draw—a neutral outcome with no winner. In legal and parliamentary settings, however, a tie is not neutral: it has a determinate legal consequence. In an election, it means no one is elected. In a deliberative assembly, it means the motion is defeated. The common-language sense implies stalemate; the legal sense imposes a specific result on the losing side of that stalemate.
Common Confusion
Two confusions arise frequently. First, a tie in a deliberative body is sometimes misread as a "no decision" requiring further deliberation, when in fact it is a decision—the motion fails. Second, the tiebreaking casting vote is sometimes confused with a general voting right of the presiding officer. In most parliamentary frameworks, the presiding officer may cast a vote only to break a tie, and in some systems, only to avoid a tie; these are distinct procedural rules, and the distinction matters when reviewing minutes, resolutions, or challenged votes.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with election law materials must distinguish the tie rule from broader electoral contest doctrine. Older sources, including Anderson's, direct the reader to the entry VOTE rather than treating TIE as a standalone concept—meaning primary doctrine on this point may be buried under a different heading in historical digests and indexes.
In deliberative assembly materials, the "tie defeats the motion" rule appears so consistently across centuries that it functions as a background norm against which exceptions (casting votes, weighted votes, supermajority requirements) must be read. When reviewing historical corporate records, municipal proceedings, or legislative journals, a recorded tie vote is a vote on the merits—not a procedural anomaly requiring a new vote unless the governing instrument says otherwise.
Burrill's entry is practically useless for the electoral or parliamentary sense of TIE; Burrill addresses the verb "to bind" and devotes the bulk of adjacent space to the Anglo-French term TIEL (meaning "such"). Researchers relying on Burrill alone will miss the term's legal significance entirely.
Jurisdictional note on electoral ties: state statutes vary considerably on resolution mechanisms—some mandate a runoff, others authorize lot or coin toss, and some assign the decision to a specified official. Federal election law does not provide a uniform resolution rule. Historical research must identify the applicable state statute at the time of the election in question.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier provides the most useful historical entry, stating plainly that in an electoral tie neither candidate is elected, and that in a deliberative assembly a tie vote defeats the question. This captures the core rule accurately and concisely. Anderson redirects to VOTE without elaboration—a common cross-referencing convention of the period that can frustrate researchers expecting a substantive entry. Burrill, as noted, addresses a different sense of the word (to bind) and is essentially irrelevant to the legal-procedural meaning.
None of the three historical dictionaries address tiebreaking mechanisms, casting votes, or the procedural consequences of a tie in judicial panels (where the effect of an equally divided court—affirmance of the judgment below without precedential force—is a distinct and important doctrine not covered here). That gap is significant for researchers working in appellate procedure.
Jurisdictional Note
In deliberative assemblies operating under Robert's Rules of Order or similar parliamentary authority, the tie-defeats-the-motion rule is uniform. In elections, resolution of ties is entirely a matter of state or local law; the applicable statute at the time of the election controls. Researchers should not assume a modern statutory resolution procedure applied to historical elections.