Australia In
Australia, following the
2010 federal election, the
Gillard government formed a
minority government with the support of a number of votes from minor parties and independents, and the Opposition refused to grant automatic pairing, leading to some embarrassment and reversals for the Opposition when, for example, a pair was initially not given for a member to care for her sick baby or to attend at the birth of his child. A pair has also been granted to minor party legislators.
Greens Senator
Scott Ludlam, for example, was given a government pair when absent from the Senate in late 2016 because of mental health issues. The pairing system was abused in Victoria in March 2018 when the Labor government granted pairs to two Opposition MPs in the upper house, but who then returned to the chamber, while the government pairs were absent, to vote down an important government bill.
Canada The
1926 Canadian election was called when
Arthur Meighen's three-day-old Conservative government was defeated 96–95 on a
motion of confidence, when a
Progressive opposition MP,
Thomas Bird who was paired with an absent pro-government Progressive MP, voted against the government, stating immediately afterward that he had not noticed the
fellow MP's exit from the house. In 2005, Paul Martin's Liberal government faced a confidence vote. NDP MP Ed Broadbent, who planned to vote in support of the government, abstained from voting so that a Conservative MP, who planned to vote against the government but was sick, could stay at home. The Liberals narrowly won the vote, with the Speaker breaking the tie.
Sweden Pairing () in the Swedish
Riksdag is a voluntary agreement run by appointed members of most of the represented political parties, called
Kvittningspersoner. The system is intended to enable MPs to abstain from votes for electorate events, study trips etc, without affecting the likely outcome of the vote. Up until September 2021, the
Sweden Democrats were not allowed by the other parties to be part of the system. In 2026, the Sweden Democrats broke a pairing agreement to block a motion concerning Swedish citizenship. Therefore, the Sweden Democrats decided to let their MPs
Charlotte Quensel and
Michael Rubbestadwho were on a list of paired non-voting MPsvote against the motion, In 1979, the
government of
James Callaghan fell by one vote, partially due to Labour
deputy whip Walter Harrison suspending the unspoken obligation of his Conservative counterpart
Bernard Weatherill to pair for the terminally ill Labour backbencher Sir
Alfred Broughton. Pairing in the
British House of Commons was again suspended by a decision of the
Labour and
Liberal Democrat Chief Whips,
Donald Dewar and
Archy Kirkwood on 17 December 1996, following an incident when they claimed to find the
Conservative government cheating in a vote by pairing the same three Conservative MPs with three absent Labour MPs as well as three absent Liberal Democrat MPs. The pairing system once again came under scrutiny during the 2017–2019 parliamentary term, when the Conservatives were in power as a minority government. In June 2018, Labour MP
Naz Shah attacked the government after Tory whips refused to pair Shah and the heavily pregnant MPs
Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat) and
Laura Pidcock (Labour) on an important
Brexit vote; Shah was required to attend the debate, despite being in a wheelchair and on a morphine drip for severe nerve pain. Several weeks later, the
Conservative chairman,
Brandon Lewis, broke a pair with Swinson on several votes on a trade bill—Swinson was on maternity leave and held a "long-term" pair with Lewis—at the behest of the Chief Whip,
Julian Smith. After Labour MP
Tulip Siddiq delayed giving birth in January 2019 in order to vote on a
crucial Brexit-related division, the House of Commons approved a trial of a
proxy voting system for new and expectant parents.
United States In the
United States Senate and
House of Representatives, pairing is referred to as a live pair, which is an informal voluntary agreement between members, not specifically authorized or recognized by House or Senate rules. Live pairs are agreements which members make to nullify the effect of absences on the outcome of recorded votes. Members expecting to be absent for a vote may "pair off" with another member who will be present and who would vote on the other side of the question, but who agrees not to vote. The member in attendance affirms a live pair, announces how each of the paired members would have voted, and then
votes "present." In this way, the other member can be absent without affecting the outcome of the vote. Because pairs are informal and unofficial arrangements, they are not counted in vote totals; however, paired members' positions do appear in the
Congressional Record. An example of a live pair is the lack of vote by
Steve Daines (
R-
MT) and Present vote of
Lisa Murkowski (R-
AK) during the final
confirmation vote in the Senate of
Brett Kavanaugh to be an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Daines was in attendance at his daughter's wedding in Montana at the time of the vote. Unlike in other countries, live pairing in the United States has historically mostly involved members of the same party, and was more common when ideological differences within parties were greater—for instance Northern Democrats pairing with their more
segregationist Southern Democrat colleagues. However, one cross-party example occurred in April 2018, when
Chris Coons (D-
DE) agreed to change his vote in the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee opposing the nomination of
Mike Pompeo for
Secretary of State to "Present" so Republican colleague
Johnny Isakson, who was suffering from
Parkinson's disease, did not have to make a difficult overnight journey from a funeral in Georgia in his condition. ==References==