Ballot

A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election, and may be a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters.

Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use preprinted ballots to protect the secrecy of the votes. The voter casts his/her ballot in a box at a polling station.

In British English, this is usually called a "ballot paper". The word ballot is used for an election process within an organisation (such as a trade union "holding a ballot" of its members).

The word ballot comes from Italian ballotta, meaning a “small ball used in voting” or a “secret vote taken by ballots” in Venice, Italy.

In ancient Greece, citizens used pieces of broken pottery to scratch in the name of the candidate in the procedures of ostracism.

The first use of paper ballots to conduct an election appears to have been in Rome in 139 BC.

In Ancient India, around 920 AD, in Tamil Nadu, Palm leaves were used for village assembly elections. The palm leaves with candidate names, will be put inside a mud pot, for counting. This was called Kudavolai system.

The first use of paper ballots in America was in 1629 within the Massachusetts Bay Colony to select a pastor for the Salem Church. Paper ballots were pieces of paper marked and supplied by voters.

Depending on the type of voting system used in the election, different ballots may be used. Ranked ballots allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference, while ballots for first-past-the-post systems only allow voters to select one candidate for each position. In party-list systems, lists may be open or closed.

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