Veto
power to unilaterally stop an official action
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto powers are also found at other levels of government, such as in state, provincial or local government, and in international bodies.
Some vetoes can be overcome, often by a supermajority vote: in the United States, a two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate can override a presidential veto. Some vetoes, however, are absolute and cannot be overridden. For example, in the United Nations Security Council, the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have an absolute veto over any Security Council resolution.
In many cases, the veto power can only be used to prevent changes to the status quo. But some veto powers also include the ability to make or propose changes. For example, the Indian president can use an amendatory veto to propose amendments to vetoed bills.
“Veto” enters the record as power to unilaterally stop an official action. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Veto, power and unilaterally can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178074. The Library of Congress control number is sh85143088. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Veto” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.