From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe votethe votea) the total number of votes made in an election Davis won the election with 57% of the vote. The Greens increased their share of the vote from 2.9% to 4.9%. b) the right to vote in political elections In France women didn’t get the vote until 1945. At that time black people did not yet have the vote. → vote
Examples from the Corpus
have the vote• They clearly did not have the votes in 1992, and they agreed to fold their tent again this time.• Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who opposes the bill, conceded he did not have the votes to wage a filibuster.• The difference between the first Great Transformation and the second is that this time people have the vote.• That every man should have the vote?• House leaders have insisted they still have the votes to re-elect Gingrich.• When I was thirty, we didn't have the vote, we had to fight for a place in the world.• But there are those who have persuaded them that if they have the vote, all else will naturally follow.the ... votethe ... votea) the black/Jewish/middle-class etc vote black, Jewish etc voters, or their votes The black vote is astonishingly loyal to the Democratic Party. b) the Labour/Conservative/Green etc vote British English the total number of votes the Labour Party, Conservative Party etc win in an election The Green vote looks likely to increase again. → voteExamples from the Corpus
the Labour/Conservative/Green etc vote• Although the Labour vote was still six million, its numbers were lower than at any time since 1910.• The ardent left-winger helped launch the Red Wedge pop-meets-politics movement to boost the Labour vote in the 1987 general election.• But the Green vote has disintegrated.• But anti-Tory feeling in a recession-battered area has polarised the Labour vote to his disadvantage.• Her great threat to the Howard government is to split the conservative vote three ways. 