By the time deliberation narrowed to two names, Ali and Uthman, the deciding voice belonged to Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, who had agreed to give up his own claim in exchange for the right to choose between the others. He put each candidate the same two conditions in turn: govern by the Quran and the Prophet's example, and follow the precedent already set by Abu Bakr and Umar as the first two caliphs. Ali accepted the first condition without hesitation but balked at binding himself to his predecessors' specific precedents, on the ground that circumstances change and a caliph must be free to exercise his own judgment. Uthman accepted both without qualification. Abd al-Rahman pledged his allegiance to Uthman on the spot, and the rest of the council, and then the wider community, followed.
Ali is reported to have said afterward that the process had been arranged against him from the start, and the record gives that complaint some support: three of the six, Abd al-Rahman, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Uthman himself, were already inclined toward Uthman before deliberation began, and the Ansar, who might have tipped a closer vote, had no seat at the table at all. Whether that arrangement reflects Umar's own design or simply the loyalties the six already carried into the room is a question the sources do not settle, and it is the same question, in a different generation, that the Saqifah had already raised about Ali's exclusion from the process that chose Abu Bakr.