'Ayes' don't necessarily have it when it comes to voice votes

A new study has suggested that the "ayes" don't necessarily have it and the voice votes are invalid.

Ingo Titze, an authority on voice and speech, conducted an experiment at one of his undergraduate classes at the University of Iowa in Iowa City after observing the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

During the convention the leadership wanted two resolutions passed and the chairman asked the 22,000 delegates for voice votes on both. Passing the motions required a two-thirds majority.

He asked for a vote, then two re-votes and even then, the response was ambiguous.

The researchers found that except under unrealistic controlled circumstances, voice votes are useless.

Titze's conclusion was that unless the vote is overwhelming- something like a two-thirds majority- no one can really tell the difference between a winning motion and a losing one.

He also found that it doesn't matter whether you call for the "yeas" and "nays" or the "yes" and "no." And, if you have a quiet voice, your vote won't be heard; the loudest voices will carry the day even if they are in the minority.

The researcher found that the voice votes are very biased toward loud voices, and soft voices are like no voices in a vote.

Amee Shah, director of the Research Laboratory in Speech Acoustics and Perception at Cleveland State University, said voice votes would work in a small group if the chair took into consideration who might have the loudest voice and moderated the results accordingly.

The study was published in the journal of the Acoustical Society of America.