subject: What Does Ballot Mean [print this page] When a person votes in an election, he is said to cast a ballot. The ballot is a piece of paper on which are printed the names of all the candidates-that is, persons who want to be elected. The voter marks an X beside the name of each candidate he wants to vote for. Then he folds the paper so that no one else can see where he put his X's; this makes it a secret ballot. Finally he drops it through a slot into a ballot box. Later, all the ballots will be taken out of this box and the votes for each candidate will be counted, to find out who was elected. Every state of the United States, and every civilized country, uses some form of secret ballot. If they did not, people might be afraid to vote against some powerful politician, for fear he would find out and punish them later. The written ballot we use is called the Australian ballot, because it was first used in Australia, about a hundred years ago (in 1856). The latest form of voting is the voting machine. Instead of marking an X, you pull down a little lever beside the candidate's name. See also the article On elections. A very efficient, completely automatic adding machine is built into the voting machine, and when you pull the lever it adds one vote to your candidate's total. This is faster than marking and counting paper ballots. The voter stands behind a curtain, so the ballot is still secret. Long ago, men voted by dropping little balls into the ballot box. A white ball meant "yes" and a black ball meant "no." The Italians called these ballota, which means "little balls," and that is where we got the word ballot. When a person wants to join a club and the members vote against him, he is said to be "blackballed.
