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TO PASS H. R. 291. (P. 1141).

May 4, 1917 .

Totals

All Votes D R P S I P
Yea 71%
 
 
 
 
 
 
260
171
 
86
 
2
 
0
 
1
 
0
 
Nay 29%
 
 
 
 
 
 
107
9
 
95
 
1
 
1
 
0
 
1
 
Present
 
 
 
 
 
 
1
1
 
0
 
0
 
0
 
0
 
0
 
Not Voting
 
 
 
 
 
 
62
32
 
30
 
0
 
0
 
0
 
0
 

unknown. unknown Required. Source: VoteView.com.

Ideology Vote Chart

Key:
Democrat - Yea Republican - Yea Democrat - Nay Republican - Nay

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Vote Details

Notes: The Speaker’s Vote?
The Speaker of the House is not required to vote in “ordinary legislative proceedings, except when such vote would be decisive.” In practice, this means the Speaker of the House rarely votes and only does so when it is politically useful. When the Speaker declines to vote, he or she is simply omitted from the roll call by the House Clerk. (See House Rules, Rule I(7).)
Accuracy of Historical Records

Our database of roll call votes from 1789-1989 (1990 for House votes) comes from an academic data source, VoteView.com, that has digitized paper records going back more than 200 years. Because of the difficulty of this task, the accuracy of these vote records is reduced.

From October 2014 through July 2015, we displayed incorrect vote totals in some cases. Although the total correctly reflected the announced positions of Members of Congress, the totals incorrectly included “paired” votes, which is when two Members of Congress, one planning to vote in favor and the other against, plan ahead of time to both abstain.

In addition, these records do not always distinguish between Members of Congress not voting (abstaining) from Members of Congress who were not eligible to vote because they had not yet taken office, or for other reasons. As a result, you may see extra not-voting entries and in these cases Senate votes may show more than 100 senators listed!

“Aye” or “Yea”?

“Aye” and “Yea” mean the same thing, and so do “No” and “Nay”. Congress uses different words in different sorts of votes.

The U.S. Constitution says that bills should be decided on by the “yeas and nays” (Article I, Section 7). Congress takes this literally and uses “yea” and “nay” when voting on the final passage of bills.

All Senate votes use these words. But the House of Representatives uses “Aye” and “No” in other sorts of votes.

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Statistically Notable Votes

Statistically notable votes are the votes that are most surprising, or least predictable, given how other members of each voter’s party voted.

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Study Guide

How well do you understand this vote? Use this study guide to find out.

You can find answers to most of the questions below here on the vote page.

What was the procedure for this vote?

  1. What was this vote on?

    2. Not all votes are meant to pass legislation. In the Senate some votes are not about legislation at all, since the Senate must vote to confirm presidential nominations to certain federal positions.

    You can learn more about the various motions used in Congress at EveryCRSReport.com. If you aren’t sure what the House was voting on, try seeing if it’s on this list.

What is your analysis of this vote?

  1. What trends do you see in this vote?

    2. Members of Congress side together for many reasons beside being in the same political party, especially so for less prominent legislation or legislation specific to a certain region. What might have determined how the roll call came out in this case? Does it look like Members of Congress voted based on party, geography, or some other reason?

  2. How did your representative vote?

    3. There is one vote here that should be more important to you than all the others. These are the votes cast by your representative, which is meant to represent you and your community. Do you agree with how your representative voted? Why do you think they voted the way they did?

    If you don’t already know who your Members of Congress are you can find them by entering your address here.

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