A parliamentary vote is a procedure that allows members of a legislative body to propose, amend, approve or reject legislative motions. This form of voting is used by most countries that have a parliamentary system of government, which are predominantly democracies and often also republics. The majority of these countries are in Europe and Oceania, but some are also found in Africa and Asia.
Most parliamentary systems are either unicameral (one chamber) or bicameral, with the difference being whether the upper house is elected in a different way to the lower house. In a parliamentary democracy, the legislature (or parliament) is sovereign, with the head of state (a monarch or hereditary prince in a constitutional monarchy, a president or chancellor in a democratic presidential republic such as Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Latvia or the Netherlands) having only a ceremonial role and no executive power. Laws are made by the majority of votes in a legislature, with the head of state having a symbolic power to return a bill to legislation as a sign of agreement or disagreement, but this is rarely exercised and can be overridden by parliament with a simple majority vote.
Parliaments may be based on one of three electoral systems: the Westminster model, which combines both constituency and party list methods; proportional representation with closed lists, like that used in West Germany after World War II; or multimember plurality, such as that used by many European countries before World War II. Some parliamentary systems have a debating chamber, called the House of Commons or the Senate, while others do not. Most parliamentary systems employ strict monism, whereby all ministers must be Members of Parliament at the time they are appointed, but some, such as Bangladesh, allow extra-parliamentary ministers.