A Ballot Was a Little Ball
A ballot is a vote. Venetians once voted by dropping small balls into urns, and the word is a memory of that.
A ballot is a vote, or the paper it is cast on. The word is Italian for a little ball: Venetians voted by dropping coloured balls into an urn, secretly and without literacy. The same practice gave English *blackball*, meaning to reject someone, from the black ball that signified a no.
- A vote or voting paper. *A secret ballot.*
- The act of voting. *Go to the ballot.*
- To take a vote. *Ballot the members.*
- Ballot box — the container. *Sealed ballot boxes.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | ballot | A postal ballot. |
| Plural | ballots | Counting ballots. |
| Verb | ballot | Ballot the staff. |
| Compound | ballot box | At the ballot box. |
| Related | blackball | He was blackballed. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The union balloted its members.Verb.
- A secret ballot protects the voter.Also called the Australian ballot.
- Spoiled ballots are recorded separately.Election administration.
Ballot vocabulary
- Secret ballot — votes cast privately, adopted widely in the nineteenth century
- Postal ballot — voting by mail
- Spoiled ballot — one that cannot be counted
- Blackball — to vote against admitting someone
- Returning officer — the person responsible for running the count
From Italian *ballotta*, a little ball, a diminutive of *balla*. The Venetian voting method gave the word to the rest of Europe.
Where does *blackball* come from?
From club voting: members dropped a white ball to admit a candidate or a black one to reject them. One black ball could be enough.
Why is it called the Australian ballot?
Because the secret ballot on an official printed paper was first widely adopted in the Australian colonies in the 1850s.