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A two-thirds rule is usually a legal and constitutional requirement that for a proposal to be accepted, it must be supported by at least two-thirds of those voting
Voting

Voting is a method for a Group such as a meeting or an Constituency to decision making or express an opinion ? often following discussions, debates or election campaigns....
. In the United States government, a presidential veto of a congressional bill can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Senate may also remove a President from office only if two-thirds of the Senators vote to do so; a simple majority will not suffice.

In American political history, the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major party contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party . It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world....
 used a two-thirds rule to choose its presidential candidates until 1936.






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A two-thirds rule is usually a legal and constitutional requirement that for a proposal to be accepted, it must be supported by at least two-thirds of those voting
Voting

Voting is a method for a Group such as a meeting or an Constituency to decision making or express an opinion ? often following discussions, debates or election campaigns....
. In the United States government, a presidential veto of a congressional bill can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Senate may also remove a President from office only if two-thirds of the Senators vote to do so; a simple majority will not suffice.

In American political history, the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major party contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party . It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world....
 used a two-thirds rule to choose its presidential candidates until 1936. In order to win the party's presidential nomination, a candidate had to be approved by two-thirds of the delegates to the party's national conventions; a simple majority of the delegates was not sufficient to win the nomination. The rule was created to give Southern Democrats a "veto power" over the nomination, and often worked to prevent the nomination of liberal candidates, especially on issues regarding civil rights
Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on sexism, religious intolerance, Racism, Homophobia, etc; individual freedom of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom...
 for black Southerners. However, an unintended consequence of the rule was that potentially strong candidates were often eliminated, and instead weaker "compromise candidates" were nominated. The rule nearly prevented Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , often referred to by his initials FDR, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
's nomination at the 1932 Democratic Convention. After he won the Presidency, Roosevelt used his prestige to end the two-thirds rule and since the 1936 election all Democratic presidential candidates have been chosen by a simple majority vote.

The precise definition of "two-thirds" varies as to whether this includes those explicitly abstaining, those passively abstaining and those not present. Among organizations that have adopted Robert's Rules of Order
Robert's Rules of Order

Robert's Rules of Order is the informal short title of a book containing rules of order intended to be adopted for use by a deliberative assembly....
 as their parliamentary authority, "two-thirds" is understood to mean two-thirds of those present and voting, with abstentions not counted as votes on either side. A measure would pass a two-thirds vote if the Aye votes were at least twice as many as the No votes.