casting vote
1
5.3
- noun
:
voto de calidad
- During the council meeting, the mayor used his casting vote to decide the outcome of the proposal.
Examples
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In the event of a tie, the vice president has the authority to exercise the casting vote.
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I had the casting vote because the judges were split two to two...
Blog text (14) -
The conference and Britain may hold the casting vote on whether the world oil price rises or falls.
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One is that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote.
Blog text (11) -
Minutes shortly after Mr. Clark had stumbled his way through his song and his rival had delivered a polished performance, Walsh was left with the casting vote.
Blog text (10) -
When the votes were tied, the chairperson cast her casting vote to break the deadlock.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is clearly built from 'cast' (to cast a vote) + 'vote', so a learner will recognize it denotes a kind of vote; this gives a basic compositional cue. However, the specific procedural sense — the presiding officer's tie-breaking vote — is a specialized, institutional meaning that is not directly derivable from the constituents and typically requires prior exposure or knowledge of meeting/parliamentary practice.
Etymology
The phrase casting vote comes from the older meaning of casting, from 'to cast' meaning 'to throw', and vote, as if the person in charge literally 'throws' one last vote into the count. When the two sides are equal, that final vote tips the balance, so a casting vote is 'the deciding vote' used to break a tie.