system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
A person nominated for Speaker needs a **majority** of the votes cast in order to win. 

The Republicans outnumber the Democrats, so a Democrat will never have the majority. Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, can only lose the votes of four other Republicans.

Right now, twenty Republicans are breaking from Kevin McCarthy so he can’t get to the required 218 votes, and those twenty people are basically just holding up the entire process.

Fun Fact:

The record for how many ballots have had to be drawn for Speaker is 133, and the process took two months.

Edit:

For those asking, the 20 have said that the reason their opposing McCarthy is being they want concessions regarding the rules of the Congress, which no one really cares about except this handful of congress people. 

Some have said that it’s because he isn’t conservative enough, but that’s also really a load on nonsense because McCarthy has been endorsed by basically everyone in the GOP, aside from those 20 people, including Frmr. President Trump. 

They really just want to obstruct the process, and simply put, they just don’t like McCarthy.
gpt
Curious, can the 20 NOT voting for Kevin M, vote for a Democrat?  has that ever happened?