How many votes does it take to elect a pope?
23056#42
Traditionally, the vote was conducted by Acclamation, by selection (by committee), or by plenary vote. Acclamation was the simplest procedure, consisting entirely of a voice vote.
The election of the pope almost always takes place in the Sistine Chapel, in a sequestered meeting called a "conclave" (so called because the cardinal electors are theoretically locked in, "cum clave", i.e., with key, until they elect a new pope). Three cardinals are chosen by lot to collect the votes of absent cardinal electors (by reason of illness), three are chosen by lot to count the votes, and three are chosen by lot to review the count of the votes. The ballots are distributed and each cardinal elector writes the name of his choice on it and pledges aloud that he is voting for "one whom under God I think ought to be elected" before folding and depositing his vote on a plate atop a large chalice placed on the altar. For the Papal conclave, 2005, a special urn was used for this purpose instead of a chalice and plate. The plate is then used to drop the ballot into the chalice, making it difficult for electors to insert multiple ballots. Before being read, the ballots are counted while still folded; if the number of ballots does not match the number of electors, the ballots are burned unopened and a new vote is held. Otherwise, each ballot is read aloud by the presiding Cardinal, who pierces the ballot with a needle and thread, stringing all the ballots together and tying the ends of the thread to ensure accuracy and honesty. Balloting continues until someone is elected by a two-thirds majority. 
One of the most prominent aspects of the papal election process is the means by which the results of a ballot are announced to the world. Once the ballots are counted and bound together, they are burned in a special stove erected in the Sistine Chapel, with the smoke escaping through a small chimney visible from Saint Peter's Square. The ballots from an unsuccessful vote are burned along with a chemical compound to create black smoke, or "fumata nera". (Traditionally, wet straw was used to produce the black smoke, but this was not completely reliable. The chemical compound is more reliable than the straw.) When a vote is successful, the ballots are burned alone, sending white smoke ("fumata bianca") through the chimney and announcing to the world the election of a new pope. Starting with the Papal conclave, 2005, church bells are also rung as a signal that a new pope has been chosen.
Pope
827717#4
The process was further refined by Gregory XV with his 1621 bull "Aeterni Patris Filius", which established the requirement of a two-thirds majority of cardinal electors to elect a pope. The Third Lateran Council had initially set the requirement that two-thirds of the cardinals were needed to elect a pope in 1179. This requirement had varied since then, depending on whether the winning candidate was allowed to vote for himself, in which cases the required majority was two-thirds plus one vote. "Aeterni Patris Filius" prohibited this practice and established two-thirds as the standard needed for election. "Aeterni Patris Filius" did not eliminate the possibility of election by acclamation, but did require that a secret ballot take place first before a pope could be elected.
Papal conclave
827717#2
Since the Apostolic Age, the Bishop of Rome, like other bishops, was chosen by the consensus of the clergy and laity of the diocese. The body of electors was more precisely defined when, in 1059, the College of Cardinals was designated the sole body of electors. Since then, other details of the process have developed. In 1970, Pope Paul VI limited the electors to cardinals under 80 years of age in "Ingravescentem aetatem". The procedures were established by Pope John Paul II in his apostolic constitution "Universi Dominici gregis" as amended by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 and 2013. A two-thirds supermajority vote is required to elect the new pope.
Papal conclave
23056#40
The pope was originally chosen by those senior clergymen resident in and near Rome. In 1059 the electorate was restricted to the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and the individual votes of all Cardinal Electors were made equal in 1179. The electors are now limited to those who have not reached 80 on the day before the death or resignation of a pope. The pope does not need to be a Cardinal Elector or indeed a Cardinal; however, since the pope is the Bishop of Rome, only those who can be ordained a bishop can be elected, which means that any male baptized Catholic is eligible. The last to be elected when not yet a bishop was Pope Gregory XVI in 1831, and the last to be elected when not even a priest was Pope Leo X in 1513, and the last to be elected when not a cardinal was Pope Urban VI in 1378. If someone who is not a bishop is elected, he must be given episcopal ordination before the election is announced to the people.
Pope
23807#25
Roncalli was summoned to the final ballot of the conclave at 4:00 pm. He was elected pope at 4:30 pm with a total of 38 votes. After the long pontificate of Pope Pius XII, the cardinals chose a man who – it was presumed because of his advanced age – would be a short-term or "stop-gap" pope. They wished to choose a candidate who would do little during the new pontificate. Upon his election, Cardinal Eugène Tisserant asked him the ritual questions of whether he would accept and if so, what name he would take for himself. Roncalli gave the first of his many surprises when he chose "John" as his regnal name. Roncalli's exact words were "I will be called John". This was the first time in over 500 years that this name had been chosen; previous popes had avoided its use since the time of the Antipope John XXIII during the Western Schism several centuries before.
Pope John XXIII
32625480#15
At the end of November, the majority of cardinals gradually came to the conclusion that no matter how outrageous the interference of Philip II, without the support of his followers there was no chance to elect a Pope, so it would be better to choose someone from his list. On 4 December, therefore, supported by the Madrid faction, Cardinal Paleotti received 33 votes (he needed another three to win). Montalto did not prefer Paleotti, so together with Sforza he came to the conclusion that in order to prevent his election, they needed to support either Sfondrati or Facchinetti. In the end, they decided to elect Sfondrati.
October–December 1590 papal conclave
3790508#21
Any priest from a Catholic faction has a chance of becoming Pope if they are accepted into the college of cardinals and then made one of the Preferati. When the incumbent Pope dies, the college of cardinals will elect a new Pope from the Preferati, with each cardinal having one vote; factions with multiple cardinals will, therefore, have much more influence on the election. The new Pope will leave their original faction and become the faction leader of the Papal States. Popes, upon being elected into office, will generally think highly of factions who supported them.
Medieval II: Total War
32625600#12
For a few weeks voting took place routinely, without any result. Most votes were received by minor candidates. The Spanish Pacheco and Cueva were regularly given twelve to twenty votes; on 13 September the Frenchman Leonocourt received 18 votes; on 18 September the absent Cardinal Henry of Portugal was given 15 votes and 5; others voted for at this point included Rebiba, Ghisleri and Saraceni. Rannucio Farnese got 21 votes in the election on the anniversary of his grandfather's election as pope. From 9 September to 16 December 68 fruitless ballots were held.
1559 papal conclave
48870396#22
Another debated issue is turnout. No contemporary source indicates how many cast ballots in an election. One clue to an approximate number is the size of the voting area. As consul Julius Caesar began the construction of a structure on the Campus Martius to hold the population while voting. The size of the structure, if completely filled with voters could have held between 30,000 and 70,000 people. This is almost certainly a high estimate, as open spaces for conducting to polling itself would at the least have been required. Cicero mentions in one work that the voting for a single consul in 45 BCE took 5 hours, with the equites and the first and second classes voting. From what we know of how the voting was structured historians have estimated that at most between 6,000 and 16,800 could have voted in that election. With an electorate of 910,000, even the most generous guesses put voter turnout below 10%.
Elections in the Roman Republic
17001246#9
In late April all the factions except the Flying Squadron had disappeared, and the cardinals had agreed to elect Emilio Altieri. On 29 April 1670 Altieri received three votes at the scrutiny in the morning, which was the same number he had received consistently since the beginning of the conclave. At the afternoon scrutiny, he received twenty-one votes, and was shortly acclaimed pope by an additional thirty-five cardinals. This brought his final total to fifty-six out of a total possible of fifty-nine electors. Altieri was old and was in poor health, and resisted his own election to the point where he had to be dragged out of his room by two cardinals in order to be acclaimed. His election took place at 3 pm, but he resisted being elected for an hour. He took the name Clement in honour of Clement IX, who had created him a cardinal. At the age of 79, Altieri is the oldest person to have been elected pope.
1669–70 papal conclave
24186432#1
Voters elected 121 members to the House of Representatives, with 71 from single-member electorates (an increase from 70 in 2011) and 49 from party lists. Since 1996, New Zealand has used the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system, giving voters two votes: one for a political party and one for their local electorate MP. The party vote decides how many seats each party gets in the new Parliament; a party is entitled to a share of the seats if it receives 5% of the party vote or wins an electorate. Normally, the House has 120 seats but extra seats may be added where there is an overhang, caused by a party winning more electorates than seats it is entitled to. The one-seat overhang from the 50th Parliament will remain for the 51st Parliament, after United Future won one electorate when their 0.22% party vote did not entitle them to any seats.
2014 New Zealand general election