Each 133-cardinal conclant member will write his choice on a paper ballot slip, fold half and bring it on it between two fingers to the Altar of Sistine’s chapel, where he will store it in a special jars placed there. To make a secret of the voting, conclave members are ordered to write their voices “as far as possible in handwriting that cannot be identified as his own.”
Every conclave member who cannot be present directly because of the disease or weakness will give their votes from their rooms in Domus Marthae Sanctae, where they are collected, placed in the key box and taken to the chapel of Sistine.
Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca (L) runs with cardinal gianfranco ravation in the Vatican, on May 6, 2025.
Bernat Armangue/AP
The votes were then counted by three supervisors who confirmed what was written in each voting and then announced it to the conclave, so that the cardinals could record the votes themselves. If the number of ballots is different from the number of cardinal voters, the ballots are discarded and burned and new votes are taken.
The candidate who secured two thirds of the votes was chosen as the Pope.
Up to four rounds of voting can usually be done in a day. If there is no clear choice that has appeared after three days, the voting is suspended for 24 hours to provide cardinal voter time to reflect. Seven other voting rounds then occur, followed by rest again, and so on.
If no whale was chosen after 33 or 34 votes – generally around 13 days – then the new rule introduced by Pope Benedict XVI decided that the two prominent candidates as determined by the previous ballot would be involved in the sound of the runoff.
The candidates themselves, if they are conclave members, they cannot vote in the runoff but are present for it. Any candidate who receives the two -thirds needed by the majority of votes is the new whale.
-ABC News’ Christopher Watson