Vote Down in a Sentence: Meaning, Examples & Practice

Vote down means to reject or defeat a proposal, motion or candidate by majority vote. To use vote down in a sentence, put the item either after the particle, as in “The council voted down the plan,” or between the two parts: “The council voted the plan down.” The verb keeps the count of votes at its centre.

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Vote down at a glance

Vote down is a separable phrasal verb meaning to reject or defeat something by voting.
Its forms are vote down, votes down, voted down and voting down.
The object may follow the particle or sit between them: vote down a motion, vote a motion down.
A pronoun object must go between the parts, so vote it down is correct and vote down it is not.
The verb belongs to meetings, councils, parliaments and committees rather than casual talk.

What does vote down mean?

Vote down is a separable phrasal verb meaning to reject or defeat a proposal, motion, budget or candidate by casting more votes against it than for it. The Cambridge entry for vote down records the sense of defeating something in a vote. The subject is always a body that counts votes, such as a council, a board or a union branch. Where a single person blocks a decision through authority rather than a show of hands, veto is the precise verb, because one official can veto but only a group can vote a matter down.

Vote down is the wrong choice when a decision is cancelled before any ballot, or when one official acts alone; in those cases call off, drop, or veto describes the event more honestly than a voting verb would.

Sense	Plain meaning	Example sentence
Reject a proposal	Defeat a motion by a majority	Councillors voted down the bypass scheme.
Unseat or reject a person	Refuse to support a candidate	The branch voted down its own chair.
Block a measure in a meeting	Stop a budget or rule from passing	Members voted the new budget down.
Reverse through a later vote	Overturn an earlier approval	The assembly voted down the earlier decision.

How do you use vote down in a sentence?

Vote down is transitive and separable: it needs an object, and the particle down can move past that object. The patterns below show where each part sits and what the order signals.

Pattern	Example	What it signals
vote down + object	The committee voted down the proposal.	Neutral order, most common in writing.
vote + object + down	The committee voted the proposal down.	Keeps the object in focus, common in speech.
vote + pronoun + down	They voted it down at midnight.	Pronouns must sit between the two parts.
be voted down (passive)	The motion was voted down by ten to two.	Keeps attention on the losing measure.
vote down + by + margin	Members voted the plan down by a clear margin.	Names the size of the defeat.

Register matters here. Vote down appears in minutes, news reports and formal correspondence, where the tally is a matter of record. In casual speech people more often say turned down or rejected, so vote down can sound slightly stiff outside a meeting.

A cartoon child slots a pronoun card labelled it between the words vote and down on a chart. — Pronoun objects sit between the verb and its particle, giving vote it down.

Vote down in a sentence: examples across contexts

The ten sentences below move from formal chambers to everyday meetings, always keeping the same core sense of a group rejecting something at the ballot.

Context	Example sentence	Why this works
Parliament	Lawmakers voted down the amendment late on Tuesday.	Fits the formal language of a legislative vote.
City council	The council voted down the parking levy.	Names a body that decides by majority.
Workplace meeting	Staff voted down the new rota in a quick show of hands.	Shows an informal but genuine vote.
Union branch	Members voted down the proposed pay deal.	Uses the verb for collective bargaining.
Club committee	The committee voted the rule change down.	Separates the verb with the object.
Shareholders	Investors voted down the merger for a second time.	Signals a repeated rejection.
News report	Senators voted down the funding bill by four votes.	Adds the margin that decides the story.
School board	The board voted down the later start time.	Everyday civic decision, clear object.
Conference	Delegates voted down the emergency motion.	Formal meeting register.
Conversation	We voted it down before lunch.	Pronoun sits between vote and down.
Boardroom	The directors voted the takeover down by one vote.	Shows a narrow, decisive margin.
Community group	Residents voted down the plan for a taller fence.	Everyday local democracy in action.

Keep the particle in place when a pronoun carries the object: the group backed down only after members voted down the earlier truce, and the same person who proposed it had to accept the result. Across every context, the subject is a body that can count votes, and the object is the measure that loses.

Vote down vs veto

Attribute	Vote down	Veto
Meaning	defeat something by a majority vote	block a decision by authority
Who acts	a group casting counted votes	one person or office with the power
How it works	more votes against than for	a single refusal, no vote needed
Reversibility	a later vote can restore the measure	often final until formally overridden
Register	neutral; political and workplace	formal, legal and constitutional
Example	Members voted down the fee rise.	The mayor vetoed the fee rise.

Use vote down when a group has counted votes, use veto when one authority blocks a decision, and the sentence will always name the right actor. Where one side simply defeats the other, defeat or outvote can replace vote down, though outvote stresses the numbers rather than the result. If the sentence names a single decider, the honest verb is veto; if it names a tally, vote down is right.

Word forms and grammar of vote down

The verb follows the regular pattern of a separable phrasal verb, and the noun voter keeps the same root.

Form	Part of speech	Example
vote down	base phrasal verb	They may vote down the plan.
votes down	third-person singular	The board votes down costly schemes.
voted down	past tense	The senate voted down the bill.
voted down	past participle	The motion was voted down.
voting down	present participle	Voting down the budget took an hour.
vote	base verb	Everyone will vote at noon.
voter	noun	Each voter cast one ballot.

Common mistakes with vote down

The five slips below cover word order, tense and the common confusion with veto.

~~The committee voted down it.~~ Correct: The committee voted it down. Rule: a pronoun object must sit between the verb and its particle.
~~They vote down the plan yesterday.~~ Correct: They voted down the plan yesterday. Rule: a past-time adverbial needs the past form voted.
~~The president voted down the bill.~~ Correct: The president vetoed the bill. Rule: one person vetoes; only a group votes a measure down.
~~Members voted down the motion by a margin~~ Correct: Members voted the motion down by a wide margin. Rule: keep the object and the margin in their natural places.
~~The proposal voted down last night.~~ Correct: The proposal was voted down last night. Rule: the passive needs was before the past participle.

Practice using vote down

Try the six items, then check the answers and the reason for each.

Fill in the blank: The council hoped to ___ ___ the new tax.
Choose the better word: The mayor (voted down / vetoed) the housing bill on her own authority.
Correct the error: The board voted down it at noon.
Build a sentence: describe a school committee rejecting a trip, using vote plus object plus down.
Spot the register: which fits a news report, “Senators voted down the bill” or “The bill got dumped”?
Fill in the blank with the past form: Members ___ the motion down by two votes.
Correct the error: The plan voted down by the committee last week.
Build a sentence: describe a board rejecting a merger, using vote down plus by a margin.

Answers

vote down – the tax is the object that a group rejects.
vetoed – one official with authority blocks, so veto is right.
The board voted it down at noon – the pronoun moves between vote and down.
Sample: The school committee voted the trip down on cost grounds – the object sits between the parts.
“Senators voted down the bill” fits a news report; the second version is too casual.
voted – the past-time vote needs the past form voted.
The plan was voted down by the committee last week – the passive needs was before the participle.
Sample: The board voted down the merger by a margin of two to one – the phrase names the size of the defeat.

A cartoon split scene shows a group raising hands to reject a plan while a single official holds a large stop sign. — Only a group can vote a plan down; a single official vetoes it.

The bottom line

Vote down is a separable phrasal verb for rejecting a proposal, motion or candidate through a majority vote, so use vote down in a sentence when a group counts ballots against something. Keep pronoun objects between vote and down, and reach for veto when one authority blocks a decision without a vote. The verb suits councils, boards and assemblies, where the defeat is public and the numbers matter. Because the sense depends on counting, the verb stays close to meetings and ballots rather than everyday choices. A well-formed sentence names the body, the measure and the outcome, and the verb carries the rest.

Frequently asked questions about vote down

Is vote down one word or two?

Vote down is written as two words, and the parts stay apart when a pronoun object appears between them, as in vote it down. A single-word spelling such as votedown is not standard English, so keep the space in every register from a council minute to a quick message.

Can you say vote down it?

No. When the object is a pronoun such as it, them or this, it must sit between the verb and the particle, giving vote it down. Writing vote down it breaks the usual order and sounds wrong to native speakers, even though the meaning would still be understood.

Can one person vote a proposal down?

Not by voting. One person casts a single vote, but a proposal is voted down only when a group’s votes against it outnumber those for it. A lone official with special power blocks a decision by vetoing it, which is a different act with a different verb.

Does vote down mean the same as cancel?

Not quite. To cancel is to call something off, whether or not anyone voted, while vote down names the method: a counted vote defeated the measure. A plan can be cancelled before a vote ever happens, but it can only be voted down after the ballots are counted.