''Ordinarium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae'' is a document written by Jacobi Gaytani that furthered the development of the

papal conclave A papal conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop of Rome, also known as the pope. Catholics consider the pope to be the Apostolic succession, apostolic successor of Saint ...

by establishing a voting procedure currently referred to as "

approval voting Approval voting is an electoral system in which voters can select many candidates instead of selecting only one candidate. Description Approval voting ballots show a list of the options of candidates running. Approval voting lets each voter i ...

". The document is notable in that it is not a papal bull or decree but was treated as law by subsequent papal elections.

Josep M. Colomer Josep Maria Colomer Calsina is a political scientist and economist. His research focuses on the strategies for the design, establishment, and change of political institutions. Topics include the processes of democratization, the origins of parliamen ...

and Iain McLean. (1998). "Electing Popes: Approval Balloting and Qualified-Majority Rule". ''The Journal of Interdisciplinary History'', Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 1-22. Gaytani (a participant in five papal conclaves between 1305 and 1352) included no restriction on the number of candidates a cardinal could include on his ballot during a ''scrutiny'', but advised not to choose too many "for decency and expediency". The combination of approval voting with the pre-existing requirement of a two-thirds

supermajority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority ru ...

has several "bizarre consequences"; for example, it can result in more than one candidate receiving a supermajority even if only one third of the electorate chooses more than one candidate. Each round of voting was also treated as distinct; that is candidates remained eligible in all future ''scrutinies'' even if they had not received a single vote previously. Approval voting was used in the forty-one conclaves from 1294 to 1621, after which it was replaced with a categoric vote by '' Eterni Pacis'' (1621) and '' Decet Romanum Pontificem'' (1622).

Notes

{{reflist Election of the Pope