Tiebreaker

A Tiebreaker is a situation where two (or more) individuals share the same amount of votes at Tribal Council with no other person receiving a higher amount. In this event, several instances may occur.

About
A tiebreaker is a situation that occurs when more than one castaway receive the highest number of votes. There are different ways to break a tie, usually starting with a revote. Other than that, the game had shown many ways to break a deadlocked tie.

Rules
In a case of a tie, the tied castaways would not vote, while the remaining players would vote again and are immune on the revote. If the exact same castaways are tied during the revote, the vote is deadlocked and a tiebreaker of some sort occurs depending on the season.

If a null vote (i.e. a vote where none of the votes cast count, possibly due to multiple idols negating all votes) occurs, a vote restart would occur. All of those who had gained individual immunity (e.g. those with the Immunity Necklace and the ones who used a Hidden Immunity Idol at the regular vote) during the regular vote would be immune, but won't be able to pass it to others before voting. Idols are not allowed to be played during the restart, just like in a revote. A tie at the restart won't force a deadlock, and castaways would be given a chance to revote if any of them wanted to change their votes.

If the deadlock occurs at any time before the final four Tribal Council, the remaining players who are not involved in the tie must unanimously agree to eliminate one of the tied castaways (as happened in ). If those castaways cannot make a consensus, they (except those who are immune) must draw rocks, and the castaway who gets the uniquely colored rock will be eliminated (if only one person would be eligible to draw rocks, they are eliminated by default). At the final four Tribal Council, the two tied players will instead have to perform a fire making challenge, where the loser goes home.

If a tribe enters Tribal Council with only two members, as happened to the Ulong tribe in, no official vote is held and the tribe goes straight to fire making.

Jury Vote Tiebreaker
In an interview with Mark Burnett in Survivor Oz, it was revealed that a revote would commence if the jury votes for the winner are tied. This has never occurred as of the current US season.

Former Rules
In, there was no protocol for breaking deadlock ties, so the tribe would revote until the tie is broken.

In and, the castaway with more previous votes against them is eliminated. Votes cast at revotes are not counted as part of the previous votes tiebreaker. If none of those who are tied have previous votes against them, the players concerned will partake in a trivia challenge to determine the result instead.

Trivia

 * Lindsey Richter is the only castaway to be in a deadlock tie twice in a single season, in . The first time occurred on Day 9, winning in the trivia tiebreaker, while the second time on Day 18, she was eliminated by having more past votes.
 * The first three-way tie occurred in, where Russell Hantz, Stephanie Valencia, and Ralph Kiser each received three votes, and Russell was voted out 5-1-0 in the following revote.
 * The earliest occurrence of a tie was on Day 3, in.
 * In the rock draw tiebreaker, the color configuration of the rocks has been different each time:
 * In, the safe rocks were yellow and the elimination rock was purple.
 * In, the safe rocks were black and the elimination rock was white.
 * In, the safe rocks were white and the elimination rock was black.