vote of confidence, procedure used by members of a legislative body (generally the lower house in a bicameral system) to remove a government (the prime minister and his cabinet) from office. To be successful, the procedure, which does not apply to the removal of heads of state in presidential and semipresidential forms of government, typically requires a majority of legislators to disapprove of the government’s actions—i.e., to issue a vote of “no confidence” or a motion of censure. (Compare impeachment.) Vote-of-confidence procedures vary from country to country. In the United Kingdom and other countries whose form of government is ... (100 of 534 words)