Survivor 50 episode 11 Vote Twist Exposed: Cirie Fields’ Extra Vote Turns Tribal Council Into a Rules Puzzle

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Vote Twist Exposed is the big takeaway from last night’s Tribal Council, after Cirie Fields’ extra vote left many viewers wondering what the real rules were.

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There are so many rules in Survivor that fans have grown used to over the years that when a twist or advantage is used in a way we are not expecting, it can be hard to tell what the actual rules are. That is especially true when host and executive producer Jeff Probst has had to step in before to clarify rules or adjust them after something unusual happens.And at last night’s Tribal Council, things definitely got confusing for viewers at home as Cirie Fields played her extra vote and created a 2-2-2 tie between herself, Emily Flippen, and Rick Devens. While Devens played his idol and the votes cast against him were nullified, the players still had to go through a revote between Cirie and Emily.Under normal circumstances, when a vote ends in a tie, everyone votes again for one of the two tied players, except for the players in the tie, since they would simply vote for each other and cancel things out. But because Cirie had played her extra vote, the rule changes slightly to account for the active advantage.As Jeff explained in Survivor 47 episode 8, “He’s All That,” in a revote where the tied players have different voting abilities—such as Sam Phalen losing his vote while Sierra Wright still had hers—the eligible player or players take part in the revote. And under the standard extra vote rules, an extra vote counts as any other regular vote a player has at Tribal Council.

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So when Cirie played her extra vote, it was treated as an extension of her Tribal Council vote, meaning it could be used again on a revote—just like a standard vote would be. And because she was one of the tied players, she had to return to the voting booth to use that second version of her extra vote. As the Survivor 47 clarification makes clear, she and Emily had a voting imbalance, so their ballots would not simply cancel each other out.

And because her extra vote was played in secret, so as not to reveal who used it, both Cirie and Emily returned to the voting booth and cast their second vote of the night. Their votes cancelled each other out anyway, so the only real effect was that Tribal Council ran a little longer—which is likely why the rule exists in the first place.

So overall, while the process may have felt confusing to fans who are used to revotes working a certain way, everything that happened at last night’s Tribal Council was completely by the book and consistent with the rules already established in the game. That said, it would have been nice to hear Jeff spell it out again the way he did in Survivor 47.