[1] In Australia, following the 2010 federal election, the Gillard government formed a minority government with the support of a number of votes from minor parties and independents, and the Opposition refused to grant automatic pairing,[2][3] leading to some embarrassment and reversals for the Opposition when, for example, a pair was initially not given for a member to care for her sick baby[4] or to attend at the birth of his child.
[9] Pairing in the Swedish Riksdag is a voluntary agreement run by appointed members of most of the represented political parties, called Kvittningspersoner.
Incensed Tory MPs accused the government of cheating on the vote, leading to physical altercations in the Commons, Shadow Minister for Industry Michael Heseltine famously removing the House of Commons mace and swinging around in the chamber, and the Speaker declaring the session being suspended as an incident of grave disorder.
[10] In 1979, the government of James Callaghan fell by one vote, partially due to Labour deputy whip Walter Harrison suspending the unspoken obligation of his Conservative counterpart Bernard Weatherill to pair for the terminally ill Labour backbencher Sir Alfred Broughton.
Live pairs are agreements which members make to nullify the effect of absences on the outcome of recorded votes.
[16] Unlike in other countries, live pairing in the United States has historically mostly involved members of the same party, and was more common when ideological differences within parties were greater—for instance Northern Democrats pairing with their more segregationist Southern Democrat colleagues.
However, one cross-party example occurred in April 2018, when Chris Coons (D-DE) agreed to change his vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opposing the nomination of Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State to "Present" so Republican colleague Johnny Isakson, who was suffering from Parkinson's disease, did not have to make a difficult overnight journey from a funeral in Georgia in his condition.