BALLOT

(Fr. balloter.) A method of voting at elections, , by means of little balls, of different colours, which arc put secretly into a box, and, when counted, disclose the result of the poll without any discovery by win >m each vote is given. The origin of the ballot may be traced to the commonwealth of the Israeli tes, from whom it was adopted by many eastern nations. The voting bj tablets began with the earliest operations of A then i an polity. But it appears questionable whether the ballot at Athens, at least in its more flourishing times, was anything more than a contrivance for securing rapidity of voting, and whether any secrecy was nece arily attached to it. It was employed injudicial proceedings. Secret voting was, however, the custom of the Areopagus. (Scott on the A then i an Ballot, 183S.) The same system of voting prevailed also at Carthage, and to this is attributed by Ray (Travels through Germany and Italy) the cause of the grandeur and independence of its inhabitants. In the early periods of Roman history, the people voted by word of mouth; and, in creating magistrates, used the form — Consules, <kc. nomino, or dico; and it was not until the 614th year of the city, that the Gabinian law, Lex Tabellaria, was introduced, for the purpose, as Cicero alleges (De. Off. 2. 7.), of giving to the people more liberty in voting. But from this period, as is universally admitted, the practice of bribery made rapid strides; and notwithstanding every effort was made for its suppre ion by the enactment of penal statutes, such was its succe that Julius Ctesar saw himself nece itated to deprive the people not only of the ballot, but even of the right of suffrage. Since the Christian era, the ballot was adopted at a very early period by the Maltese and the Venetians.At Venice, in particular, a most curious and intricate system of voting, consisting of ten previous ballots tions, prevailed for the space of 1300 years; and Post ell us (in a work De Magi strati bus Atheuiensium) pointedly a erts that the abolition of this practice, combined with other causes, led to the decline of this once nourishing state. Another author, after an elaborate di ertation < vantages of the Venetian ballot, sums up his account qI an election of which he had been an eyewitne io th ing words: — "All was easily performed in a short time. without tumult, without noise, without animosities, and th:. most deserving always elected." In our own tin: well known, the system of voting by ballot in the election of representatives, magistrates, . is adopted in Fran.CS [s. 134]