Live updates of the papal conclave: the cardinals meet in the Vatican to choose the next Pope

Each member of the 133 cardinal conclave will write their choice on a paper ballot, will bend it once in half and take it high between two fingers to the altar of the Sistine Chapel, where it will deposit it in a special urn placed there. In order for the vote to be secret, the members of the conclave are told to write their votes “as much as possible in hand writing that cannot be identified as theirs.”

Any member of the conclave that cannot attend in person due to a disease or illness will expel their vote from their room at the Domus Marthae Sanctae, where they are collected, placed in a security box and lead to the Sistine Chapel.

The votes are counted by three scrutineers who affirm what is written in each vote and then announce it to the conclave, so that the cardinals can record the votes themselves. If the number of tickets issued is different from the number of cardinal voters, those ballots are discarded and burn and take a new vote.

The candidate who ensures two thirds of the votes is elected Pope.

Up to four voting rounds can generally take place in one day. If a clear choice has not emerged after three days, the vote is suspended for 24 hours to allow the time of cardinal voters to be reflected. Then seven other rounds are carried out, followed by another break, and so on.

If Pope is not chosen after 33 or 34 votes, usually approximately 13 days, then a new rule introduced by Pope Benedict XVI decrees that the two main candidates as determined by the previous ballots will participate in a second round vote.

The candidates themselves, if they are members of the conclave, cannot vote in the runoff, but are present for it. Whatever the candidate who receives the necessary majority of two thirds of the votes is the new Pope.

-ABC News’ Christopher Watson