Docket
The docket is the list of bills a body has before it, kept in the order they were filed: for each one its number, its title, the committee it went to, and where it stands today.
Bills filed
Nothing is filed yet; the first bill to arrive takes line one and keeps it.
Section 1. One line of the docket
Four things make one line: the number, the title, the committee, and the standing. The number is given once and never used again. The title is the bill's own caption, as its author wrote it. The committee is wherever it was sent to be read. The standing is the one column that changes — referred, reported, on the floor, passed, failed, withdrawn — and it is written over every time the bill moves, so a line read today says where the bill is today.
A line never holds a guess. A column that cannot be filled in from the bill itself, or from the record of what happened to it, is left blank rather than written as a zero, because zero is a claim and blank is not.
Section 2. The count
When the question is put, the chair asks first for a voice vote — the ayes, then the noes — and declares which side had it. Any member who doubts that call can demand a division, and then each side is counted: standing, or by a show of hands. Whoever wants every name on the record can demand a roll call, and the clerk reads the roll and writes each answer beside the name it came from.
However it was taken, the count is written down as three figures kept apart — for, against, and present but not voting — because the three say different things about the same question. A bill that has been voted on carries all three under its line.