Ballot

a written or printed vote. Voting by ballot differs from a rising vote, a show of hands, answering a roll call, and all other such forms of voting, in that it is a method intended to secure secrecy. The ballot is not a modern invention. Athenian juries voted by ballot as early as the fifth century before Christ. The jurymen cast a white pebble, bean, or ball for acquittal and a black one for conviction. Sometimes shells or pieces of metal were used as ballots. An unpierced shell corresponded to a white ball; a pierced shell to a black ball. A very pretty system of writing the names of candidates on olive leaves was in use in Syracuse. As early as 139 B. C. the Gabinian law provided ballot boxes for elections in the Roman Assembly. The method adopted by the Romans seems quite modern. The names of candidates were written on tablets. The votes were thrown into a chest, where they were guarded by inspectors. Clerks counted the votes and handed them over to the judges. In case of a tie, the election was decided by lot.

Voting by ballot is an old English custom. White and black balls were used by many societies in voting for new members. White balls were favorable; black balls unfavorable. To vote against a proposed member was to "blackball" him. The directors of the Virginia Company were elected every year by ballot. Public elections by ballot were not introduced into England, however, until 1872. In England the system of voting by word of mouth in public was long depended upon by landlords and politicians as a means of controlling the votes of their tenants and followers. Daniel O'Connell introduced a bill on the subject in 1830, but Parliament rejected it. Macaulay and the historian Grote favored the ballot. Sydney Smith, leader of the wits, ridiculed the ballot box as a "mouse trap to catch voters." Land owners, generally, opposed balloting strenuously on the ground that an open vote developed manliness and courage, while balloting gave opportunity for sneaking and deception. In 1870 the question of the ballot came to a head. Lord Hartington reported for a committee that "corruption, treating, and intimidation by priests and landlords took place to a large extent at both parliamentary and municipal elections in both England and Ireland; and that the ballot, if adopted, would probably not only promote tranquility at elections, but protect voters from undue influence, and introduce greater freedom and purity in voting, provided secrecy was made inviolable." After trying the ballot system in an experimental way, the Ballot Act of Mr. Forster, in 1872, required the voters at all parliamentary and municipal elections, except in universities, to use ballots.

So far as known the first written ballot cast in America was that for the pastor of a Salem church, July 20, 1629. The ballot gradually supplanted open voting. Voting by ballot became general in New England at an early date. No other method has ever prevailed in the West. Several of the Southern States, however, adhered to the open ballot until quite recently. Kentucky did not adopt the ballot system for local and state elections until 1891. Formerly each party prepared its own ballot. Although the laws require that all ballots be printed on white paper, there are different degrees of whiteness and different sizes of paper. It was still quite possible to determine from the appearance of the ballot what party the voter was supporting. To afford greater secrecy, a method was devised in South Australia, and has been adopted by a number of states. According to the Australian system, one ballot, officially prepared, contains the names of all the candidates for the several offices. The voter is handed one of these ballots. He retires to a booth by himself where he marks the names of those for whom he wishes to vote.

The next improvement in sight is that of voting with machines, each booth being furnished with a voting machine provided with a push button for each candidate. The push buttons are so controlled that the voter can push but one button for each office. A self-registering system enables the judges of the election to announce the result of the ballot as soon as the polls are closed, a very great saving of labor and time, especially in large cities where many votes are cast. In 1909 the Ohio supreme court decided that voting machines were illegal in that the vote was not cast by ballot.

See Ostracism