When a node shuts down in a planned manner (an administrator shutdown or
automated shutdown such as cluster-aware updating), the node removes its own
vote.
When a node crashes, the remaining active nodes remove the vote of the downed
node.
When a node joins the cluster, it gets its vote back.A feature called Node Vote Weights enables certain nodes to be specified as not
participating in quorum calculations by removing the vote of the node. The node still
fully participates in the cluster, it still has a copy of the cluster database, and it still
runs cluster services and can host applications, but it no longer affects quorum
calculations. There is only one scenario for which you would want to make this type of
change, and that is for multisite clusters where failover must be manually performed,
such as with a SQL Always On High Availability configuration using asynchronous
replication that requires manual interaction to failover. In this scenario, the nodes in
the remote site would have their votes removed so that they cannot affect quorum in
the primary site.
Modifying Cluster Vote Configuration
Modification of votes can be performed using the Failover Cluster Manager graphical
interface and PowerShell. To modify votes using the graphical tools, perform the
following steps (note that the same process can be used to revert the cluster back to
the default configuration of all nodes having votes):
1 . In Failover Cluster Manager, select the main cluster object in the navigation pane.
2 . From More Actions, select Configuration Cluster Quorum Settings.
3 . Click Next on the introduction screen of the wizard.
4 . Select the Advanced Quorum Configuration option, and click Next.
5 . On the Select Voting Configuration page, choose the Select Nodes option, and then
uncheck the nodes that should not have a vote, and click Next (see Figure 7.5).
Note that on this screen, the default is All Nodes, meaning that all nodes should
have a vote, but also that there is an option that no nodes have a vote, which
means that only the disk witness has a vote. This is the original cluster quorum
model and, frankly, it should never be used today because it introduces a single
point of failure. It is there for historical reasons only.
6 . Click Next to all remaining screens. The witness configuration will be changed, and
the modification will then be made to the cluster.