The Southern Baptist Convention elected a new president yesterday after another candidate withdrew from the runoff vote.

After a first round of voting failed to elect a candidate, the names of the two who polled highest were put to the convention. However, in the second ballot Tennessee megachurch pastor Steve Gaines came three votes short of a required majority because 108 ballot papers were improperly marked and could not be counted.

His opponent JD Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, said he would rather withdraw than leave the meeting divided.

"One of the candidates leaving the convention with a 51 to 49 per cent majority in a third ballot is just not going to serve our mission well," he said.

Greear finished top in the first ballot, with Gaines second. According to Baptist News Global, Gaines was also planning to withdraw until Tuesday night when he met with Greear, who told him he believed he should be the one to pull out.

"I said I'll do it," Gaines said. "It doesn't matter to me. Number one, I want Jesus to be lifted high and I want us to be together. OK, that's what I want."

Gaines has been pastor of the 16,000-member Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee since 2005.

Before the election Baptist Press quizzed the candidates on the key moral issues of the day. Gaines replied: "The three key moral issues in our day are abortion, sexual immorality." On abortion, he says: "We must never waver regarding the fact that the Bible teaches that life begins at conception. Every unborn child is an eternal soul."

On sexuality, he says the culture is "morally confused" and says the denomination "must advocate for biblical marriage". "The only marriage Jesus affirmed was heterosexual, monogamous marriage – one man married to one woman for life. God created males to be males and females to be females," he says. "Gender is biological, not psychological."