People!!! There is only one person on the ballot at any time. You have a choice of a Yes or No or Present vote. The Present vote lowers the threshold of majority of votes cast because no vote was cast by the Present vote. There is no “vote-splitting” because there is only one candidate per vote. Once elected by the majority of votes cast then it is over. The GOP ain’t going to vote for Pelosi if Boehner is defeated. On the second round of voting then names are taken from the floor, namely Gomert/Yolo and each is voted on separately in alphabetical order until one reached a majority of votes. Don’t let your Congressman bamboozle you into thinking that they “have” to vote for any candidate—if they say this they are lying to you!!!
Thank you. Now I understand what the heck is going on.
This isn’t true. The Clerk of the House of Representatives requests nominations: there are normally two, one from each major party (each party will have previously met to decide on its nominee). The Clerk then calls the roll of the Representatives-elect, each Representative-elect indicating the surname of the candidate he or she is supporting. Representatives-elect are not restricted to voting for one of the nominated candidates and may vote for any person, even for someone who is not a member (or member-elect) of the House at all. They may also abstain by voting “present”.
Your description of the process is in error. The actual procedure is explained in many posts and on numerous web sites.