Voting in Among Us: How to use votes to your advantage as imposter

Recently, a U.S. Congressperson announced their intention to stream Among Us in order to encourage voters to get out and vote on election day. Now seems like as good a time as any to talk about voting in Among Us, and what you can do to turn votes to your own advantage when playing as imposter.

Anyone want to play Among Us with me on Twitch to get out the vote? (I’ve never played but it looks like a lot of fun)

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 19, 2020

Does voting favor the crew or imposters in Among Us?

Voting is the only tool the crew has to fight the imposters in Among Us, and it would seem then that the crew should have the most to gain from voting. However, since the crew doesn’t know who the imposters are, and because there are more crew than imposters, every vote is a risk for them.

There are a few circumstances where the crew must make a vote, such as when they risk losing their majority and losing to the imposters, and those are the times that imposters can take the most advantage of these votes.

How to vote in Among Us

The actual mechanics of voting in Among Us are quite simple. When a meeting is called (either an emergency meeting or from reporting a body) a brief timer will tick for discussion, followed by a window for voting. The exact numbers depend on your lobby rules, but because you can still talk during the voting time the vote window tends to be bigger than the discussion window.

Among Us uses First-Past-the-Post voting (learn more about FPTP here), which means that whoever has the most votes is selected regardless of how everyone else voted. In Among Us, getting the most votes means you get thrown out of the group, either into space or into a pit of lava.

While you won’t always be able to manipulate the votes in Among Us, there are certain situations where careful voting strategies can result in a more controlled outcome.

Imposter voting strategies in Among Us

i miss the days of among us when i could just scream a name and everyone will mindlessly vote that person out without questioning me...nowadays, people asks for stupid stuff like "evidence" and "reasoning"🤮

— Disguised Toast (@DisguisedToast) October 18, 2020

When playing as an imposter in Among Us, there are three possible outcomes to consider when voting.

1. The crew votes for an imposter
2. The crew votes for a crewmate
3. The crew votes to skip (also happens during a tie)

As an imposter, you want to avoid the first option no matter what. The second option is good for imposters, but if you push too strongly for it you might reveal yourself, leaving the third option as the most consistently safe one for imposters.

However, at certain points the crew must make a vote, such as when 5 players remain with 2 imposters or when there are 3 players and 1 imposter. If the crew fails to vote an imposter at these moments, the next kill (or incorrect vote) will cause the imposters to win.

As an imposter, you want to take advantage of the fact that the crew doesn’t know who you are and the fact that you and your other imposter can cause votes to split to your advantage.

For example, if two members of the crew are convinced that you are the imposter, but you can convince just one crewmate to either vote for someone else, or even to skip, then you and just that crewmate can force a tie that spares your life. If you can get the other imposter to help you, then you can even go so far as to turn the vote against your accusers.

Even if many crewmembers are still alive, getting the crew to split their votes among multiple people would likely result in just three votes being enough to kill your target.

Another strategy to consider is to trick players to not vote at all. If you believe you have enough votes to kill a target, but you’re worried that the remaining Among Us players might vote to skip, you could either try to distract them long enough for time to run out.