What is the Senate vote threshold to convict and remove a president after impeachment?
Executive summary
Conviction in a Senate impeachment trial requires the concurrence of two‑thirds of the Senators present; practically, if all 100 Senators are present that means 67 must vote “guilty” on at least one article for conviction and removal [1] [2]. The vote on disqualification from future office is a separate question and historically treated as requiring only a simple majority, while procedural and constitutional debates about who presides and what counts as “present” shape how that two‑thirds rule operates in practice [1] [3] [4].
1. The constitutional rule: two‑thirds of those present, not two‑thirds of the full Senate
Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution and the Senate’s own guidance make clear that conviction requires “the concurrence of two‑thirds of the Members present,” so the relevant denominator is Senators present for the vote, not necessarily all 100 members of the chamber [2] [3]. Official explanatory material from Congress and the Senate repeats this framing and gives the practical example that with 100 Senators present the threshold is 67 votes, and if fewer senators participate the raw number required is correspondingly lower [1] [2].
2. What a conviction produces: removal, then optionally disqualification
A conviction by the necessary two‑thirds on any article results in removal from office; the Senate may then hold a separate vote to bar the person from holding future federal office, and longstanding Senate practice treats that disqualification vote as subject to a simple majority rather than the two‑thirds rule that governs conviction itself [5] [4]. Multiple official guides and legal commentators note the two distinct actions — conviction/removal, then optional disqualification — and the different vote rules historically applied [6] [4].
3. Counting “present” votes and procedural nuances that matter politically
How the denominator is tallied can change outcomes: a Senator voting “present” is counted among those present and therefore raises the number of “yes” votes needed to reach two‑thirds; Senate rules and precedent make a “present” response effectively a vote against conviction in the arithmetic that determines the threshold [1] [7]. This procedural fact means absenteeism or strategic “present” votes can be as important as explicit “no” votes when a trial is close, a point underscored in Senate rule commentary and historical practice [1] [8].
4. Who presides and limits on punishment: context and checks
The Constitution specifies that when the President is tried the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the Senate trial, a safeguard intended to separate the Vice President from presiding over a trial involving the President; the Constitution also limits punishments the Senate can impose to removal and possible disqualification and confirms there is no judicial appeal from a Senate conviction [2] [5] [3]. Senate procedural discretion shapes how evidence and deliberations proceed, but the two‑thirds conviction threshold and the limited range of penalties are fixed constitutional limits [3] [7].
5. Historical practice and political reality
While the constitutional math is straightforward, history shows the two‑thirds rule has real political weight: several presidential impeachments ended in acquittal because the Senate failed to assemble the two‑thirds majority needed, and senators have at times invoked jurisdictional or constitutional arguments in their votes as well as political judgment [9] [10]. Official histories and contemporary analyses stress that reaching two‑thirds requires broad bipartisan support, which has proven difficult in modern polarized politics even when the House has impeached by a simple majority [5] [11].