Cloture is the act of voting to bring a debate to an immediate end in order to vote on the matter currently under discussion.
In the United States, cloture is the process for ending a Senate {filibuster} (a legislative tactic used to stop a vote by extending debate indefinitely). Rule 22 established that a vote for cloture can end a filibuster provided that at least 61 Senators agree. Once cloture has been invoked, no more than 30 hours of additional debate is permitted, and no individual Senator is permitted to speak for longer than an hour.