Congressional Glossary
What is a roll-call vote?
A roll-call vote is a vote in which each member's name and position are recorded. It is the only kind of congressional vote that shows exactly how your senators and representative voted.
In one sentence
A roll-call vote is a vote in which each member's name and position are recorded. It is the only kind of congressional vote that shows exactly how your senators and representative voted.
To force one: One-fifth of the members present (Article I, Section 5)
What a roll-call vote is
A roll-call vote records where every member stood: Yea, Nay, Present, or Not Voting, name by name. The Constitution guarantees the option. Under Article I, Section 5, one-fifth of the members present can demand that "the Yeas and Nays" be entered in the official journal (constitution.congress.gov). You will also hear the same thing called a recorded vote or, in the Senate, the yeas and nays.
How the House and Senate record votes
The two chambers record votes differently. In the House, members vote by electronic device, inserting a card at stations around the chamber; the House cast its first electronic vote in 1973 (history.house.gov), and a vote is typically held open for about 15 minutes. The Senate still does it the old way. A clerk calls each senator's name aloud, in alphabetical order, and senators answer from the floor. Every result is published by the House Clerk and on senate.gov.
Roll-call vote vs. voice vote
Plenty of congressional votes are never recorded at all. In a voice vote, members answer "aye" or "no" together and the presiding officer judges which side sounded larger. That is fast, and for routine business it works fine, but it leaves no record of any individual's position. A voting-record site like this one tracks roll calls only, because they are the only votes that can be traced to a name.
Reading a roll-call result
Take a recent one. On July 13, 2026, the Senate confirmed Arthur Roberts Jones as a district judge, 46 to 44. The tally tells you the outcome and the margin. The official record behind it lists all 100 senators by name and position, which is what makes attendance scores, party-loyalty scores, and member scorecards possible. Every vote listed on this site links back to its official source at Congress.gov, clerk.house.gov, or senate.gov, so any number here can be checked against the record. The feed below shows the newest recorded votes in both chambers.
The newest roll-call votes
8 roll calls shown, newest first. Each row links to the official record.
Common questions
A roll-call vote is any vote where each member's individual position is recorded by name: Yea, Nay, Present, or Not Voting. The Constitution lets one-fifth of the members present demand one, which is why close or contested questions usually end up with a recorded vote.
In a voice vote, members call out together and the presiding officer judges which side won; nobody's individual position is recorded. A roll-call vote records every name. Both count equally as passage, but only roll calls can be tracked member by member.
Look up the member's scorecard page on this site, which lists recent roll-call positions with links to the official record. The primary sources are clerk.house.gov for House votes and senate.gov for Senate votes; both publish every recorded vote in full.