BALLOT (Fr. ballotte. It. ballottu, dim. of bona, a ball). Primarily. a little ball, used in the practice of secret voting. Secret voting is thence called 'voting by ballot.' whether it be a ball, a ticket, or a mechanical device that is used for the purpose. Wherever the practice of de ciding questions by vote has obtained, some form of secret voting has always been found neces sary in order to insure untrammeled action by the voter. The dieasts in Greece voted secretly by means of balls. stones, or shells with marks. From this use of marked shells (Gk. ostrokon. shell), in popular voting came the so-called ostra cism. or secret vote of the people. by which they drove into exile those who became obnoxious to them. Tabellw, or tickets, were chiefly used by the Romans. If the vote concerned a change in the law, the tickets were marked V. R., the ini tial letters of the words 'Uti Rogas.' expressing assent to the proposer's proposition; and A. for Antiquo,' expressing adherence to the old law. If the vote concerned the election of candidates to a public race. then the tickets bore the names of the candidates. The system of secret voting in Rome was fixed by various laws, of which the Lex Gabinia, n.c. 139, was the first: but the popular assemblies voted by ballot as well as by acclamation long before the passing of these laws. These ancient forms of secret voting con tinued into the Middle Ages, and especially the method of voting by colored balls, from which the usage takes its name. Balls may be used in voting in various ways: e.g. the voter may de posit a ball in either of two boxes, so conjoined that no one shall be able to say into which he drops it: or he may be presented with two balls —a white and a black—and so drop one of them into a box that it shall he unknown which he used. This original form of balloting is still employed in the election of a Pope by the College of Cardinals, and commonly in voting on the question of the admission or rejection of mem bers of private clubs.
In modern times, however, the most common form of ballot has been the written or printed ticket. In the New England Colonies the prae flee of voting 'by papers' was in vogue from the very first, and there is some reason to suppose that some of the Puritans had become familiar with that usage in Holland or elsewhere on the Continent. The ballot has been occasionally em
ployed in legislative assemblies. It was used in the Venetian Senate:. and in Great Britain it was first called for, not for the purpose of elec tions, but of protecting the independence of members of Parliament in their votes on pro posed legislation. After the Restoration, in 1660, it was used for purposes of ostracism in the Scottish Parliament. In 1710 a proposal for secret voting was carried in the English House of Commons, but rejected by the Lords. From 18.40 to 1845 the ballot was in use in the Freud) Chamber of Deputies. But the idea of secret voting in deliberative and legislative assemblies responsible to the people is now universally abandoned, as inconsistent with the fundamental principles of popular government, of which pub licity and the free criticism rendered possible by publicity are the great safeguards.
Toward the end of the Eighteenth Century vote by ballot for elections to the British Parlia ment was advocated by some of the Whigs; and it was one of the first things demanded by Eng lish Reformers at the beginning of the Nine teenth Century, the followers of Bentham being specially earnest in advocating it. It stood in the original draft of the Reform Bill of 1832. Grote first proposed it in 1833, and renewed the motion every year till 1839. It was one of the six points of the Chartists. In 1851 the proposal of vote by ballot was carried in the Commons against the opposition of Lord J. Russell and the Liberal Govermnent of that time by a ma jority of 51. The report of a select committee of the House of Commons in 1869 greatly con tributed to decide public opinion in favor of the ballot as a necessary safeguard against corrup tion, intimidation. disorder, and all sorts of un due influence at elections. The result was Mr. Forster's Ballot Act of 1872, which introduced secret voting at all parliamentary and municipal elections except parliamentary elections for uni versities. It had already been adopted for school-board elections in 1870. With the intro duction of the ballot at parliamentary elections, the public nomination at the hustings, which had been so often associated with rioting and violence, disappeared.