On a congressional roll call, “NV” means “Not Voting.” It’s the label attached to any member who did not record a Yea, a Nay, or a Present when the question was put. The designation appears in every roll call summary the House Clerk and the Senate publish, sitting in its own column next to the other tallies.1U.S. Representative Rick Larsen. Reading Roll Call Votes An NV carries no official explanation for why the member didn’t vote, and it doesn’t count for or against the measure. It can still change whether a bill passes.
Why a Member Ends Up Marked NV
The usual reason is plain absence. Members get sick, travel on committee business, attend funerals, or get stuck in transit. Congress schedules hundreds of recorded votes a session, and no one makes all of them.
Sometimes the choice is deliberate. A member facing a politically awkward vote may skip it rather than go on record either way. Watchdog groups regularly flag high NV rates as a sign of dodging accountability, but the roll call itself won’t tell you which absences were strategic and which were logistical.
Pairing
An older practice called pairing accounts for a smaller share of NVs. Two members who would have voted on opposite sides agree that one will withhold their vote to offset the other’s absence. The member who stays on the floor announces the arrangement and is recorded as Not Voting instead of casting a Yea or Nay.2U.S. Government Publishing Office. Riddick’s Senate Procedure Pairs are voluntary, aren’t in the formal rules of either chamber, and are never counted when the result is tabulated. They just let an absent member signal a position for the record.
NV Versus Voting “Present”
These get confused because both look like ways to sidestep a choice, but they aren’t the same thing. Voting Present is an affirmative act: the member is on the floor, responds when their name is called, and records themselves as present without picking Yea or Nay.3Congressman Jerry Nadler. Reading Roll Call Votes Members sometimes do this when they have a personal conflict on a bill or want to log attendance without endorsing either outcome.
NV covers two very different situations. The member may have been out of the building entirely, or they may have been present and chose not to answer. The roll call doesn’t distinguish. Both show up as the same NV designation.
Does an NV Change the Outcome?
Directly, no. NVs are excluded from the count on the question. Indirectly, they can matter a lot, because most passage thresholds are pegged to votes cast rather than to total membership.
A simple majority in the House means at least half-plus-one of the members actually voting, provided a quorum is present. Every NV shrinks the pool the majority is calculated from. If 400 members vote, a bill needs 201 Yeas. If 50 sit out and only 350 vote, it needs 176. In a tight fight, a handful of strategic absences on one side can decide whether a bill clears the bar. A tie fails.4Congress.gov. Voting and Quorum Procedures in the House of Representatives
The same dynamic amplifies on supermajority questions. The Constitution requires two-thirds for overriding a presidential veto, proposing constitutional amendments, expelling a member, and ratifying treaties in the Senate. For veto overrides, the requirement is two-thirds of “that House,”5U.S. Senate. Constitution of the United States and Congress has long read this as two-thirds of those present, a reading the Supreme Court confirmed in 1919.6National Archives. The Presidential Veto and Congressional Veto Override Process Every NV lowers the raw number of Yeas needed to reach the two-thirds line.
NV and Quorum
A quorum in either chamber is a majority of the sworn, living members, a floor set by the Constitution: “a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business.”7Legal Information Institute. Article I, U.S. Constitution Without one, the chamber cannot act.
NV interacts with quorum in an important way. Under the rule Speaker Thomas Reed established in 1890, members physically present in the chamber count toward a quorum whether they answer the roll or not. The Supreme Court upheld the approach, holding that “all that the Constitution requires is the presence of a majority.”8Legal Information Institute. Quorums in Congress So an NV member sitting in the chamber still supports the quorum. An NV member who is genuinely absent does not. If enough members leave and the count drops below a quorum, any member can raise a point of order, forcing the chamber to summon absent members or adjourn.4Congress.gov. Voting and Quorum Procedures in the House of Representatives
Can a Missed Vote Be Fixed After the Fact?
Not really. House members who miss a vote can submit a “Personal Explanation” to the Congressional Record describing why they were absent and how they would have voted. The practice goes back to at least 1845 and is entirely voluntary; by some estimates, only about one in six absences get one filed.
These statements have no legal effect. They don’t add, change, or retroactively record a vote. The roll call stands. The explanation is just a way to put the member’s position into the official record for constituents. The Senate has no formal equivalent, though members sometimes make floor statements explaining an absence.
Where to Look Up an NV
Every roll call in both chambers is public. Congress.gov maintains a searchable database you can browse by chamber, session, date, and bill number.9Congress.gov. Roll Call Votes by the U.S. Congress Each result page shows the breakdown of Yeas, Nays, Present, and NV by party, with a full alphabetical list of how each member was recorded. The current Congress is the 119th, covering 2025–2026, and older records link back to each chamber’s own archive. To check a specific member’s attendance pattern, their individual page on Congress.gov lists every vote they participated in and every one they missed.