From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishvote something ↔ down phrasal verbto defeat a plan, law etc by voting In 1999 the town had voted down a petition to close the school. → vote→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
vote down• Mr Livingstone's vote was down 30 percent compared with last year; but all other left-wing candidates lost votes, too.• If Mr Smith demands too much, the unions will vote him down.• The motion to override was defeated by 215 votes to 211, with 52 Democrats joining 163 Republicans in voting it down.• The other council members eventually voted these down.• For example, they recently voted to strike down an act that would have allowed married women to keep their maiden names.• Most tellingly, Labour's vote was well down on its 1990 performance in the provinces.• The Conservative share of the vote was scarcely down on last time.• I vote we take down the pictures, except for the two painted by Nina. 