secret ballot

"Secret Ballot" (Raye makhfi) is a 2001 Iranian film by Babak Payami.

The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices are confidential. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery.

The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy. Secret ballots are suitable for many different voting systems.

The most basic form may be blank pieces of paper, upon which each voter writes only their choice. Without revealing their vote to anyone, the voters place the ballots into a sealed box, which is emptied later for counting.

One of the most common forms in the modern world provides for pre-printed ballot papers with the name of the candidates or questions and respective checkboxes. Provisions are made at the polling place for the voter to record their preferences in secret. The ballots are specifically designed to eliminate bias and to prevent anyone from linking voter to ballot. This system is also known as the Australian ballot, because it originated in Australia during the 1850s.

History

The Polling by William Hogarth (1755); Before the secret ballot was introduced voter intimidation was commonplace

Ancient

In Greece, Secret Ballot was used in several occasions, like ostracism and also to remain hidden from people seeking favors. In Rome, Laws regulating elections are collectively known as Tabellariae Leges, the first of which was introduced in 139 BC (gabinia lex)^[1].

Modern

Today the practice of casting secret ballots is so commonplace that most voters would not consider that any other method might be used, yet in the 19th century it was highly controversial.

France

Article 31 of the French Constitution of 1795^[2] states that All elections are to be held by secret ballot.

Britain

The demand for a secret ballot was one of the six points of Chartism. In the words of the petition that was published in 1838: "The suffrage, to be exempt from the corruption of the wealthy and the violence of the powerful, must be secret." [1] The parliament of the time refused to even consider the Chartist demands but it is notable that Macaulay in his speech of 1842 while rejecting Chartism's six points as a whole admitted that secret ballot was one of the two points he could support. The secret ballot was eventually introduced in the Ballot Act 1872, substaintially reducing the cost of campaigning.

Australia

Chartist ideas influenced the miners of Eureka Stockade in 1854 in Victoria where they adopted all of Chartism's six points including the secret ballot.

Secret balloting appears to have been first implemented in the former Australian colony — now a state — of Tasmania on February 7 1856. Until the original Tasmanian Electoral Act of 1856 was 're-discovered' recently, credit for the first implementation of the secret ballot often went to the colonies of Victoria and South Australia.^[3] Victoria enacted legislation for secret ballots on March 19 1856, and South Australian Electoral Commissioner William Boothby generally gets credit for creating the system finally enacted into law in South Australia on April 2 of that same year (a fortnight later).

United States

New York polling place circa 1900, showing voting booths on the left.

In the United States the practice became known by the name "Australian ballot". What was called the Australian secret ballot was defined as having four parts: "1) an official ballot being printed at public expense, 2) on which the names of the nominated candidates of all parties and all proposals appear, 3) being distributed only at the polling place and 4) being marked in secret."^[4]

In the United States, most states had moved to secret ballots soon after the presidential election of 1884. However, the last U.S. State in the Union to retire the practice of the oral ballot was the Commonwealth of Kentucky which did so in 1891. The Constitution for the State of West Virginia still allows voters to cast "open ballots"^[5]. Therefore, the first President of the United States elected completely under the Australian ballot was president Grover Cleveland in 1892. Elections in the United States are now almost always held by secret ballot. ^[6] A Pennsylvania commonwealth legislator long active in election reform issues, Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said "The secret ballot guarantees that it is one's private opinion that counts. Open ballots are not truly free for those whose preferences defy the structures of power or friendship." The Populists, a short-lived American political party during 1870s through 1890s, listed the Australian ballot as one of their party platforms in the Ocala Demands.

Secrecy vs. Reliability

The UK secret ballot arrangements are sometimes criticised because it is possible to link a ballot paper to the voter that cast it. Each ballot paper is individually numbered and each elector has a number. When an elector is given a ballot paper, their number is noted down on the counterfoil of the ballot paper (which also carries the ballot paper number).

This measure is thought to be justified as a security arrangement so that if there was an allegation of fraud, false ballot papers could be identified. The process of matching ballot papers to voters is permissible only if an Elections Court requires it, and this is an extremely unlikely occurrence. The legal authority for this system is set out in the Parliamentary Elections Rules in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. [2]PDF

Chronology of introduction

• August 22 1795 - France
• February 7 1856 - Tasmania, Australia
• March 19 1856 - Victoria, Australia
• April 2 1856 - South Australia
• 1858 - New South Wales
• 1859 - Queensland
• 1870 - New Zealand
• 1872 - United Kingdom - Done by the Ballot Act 1872
• 1874 - Canada
• 1877 - Western Australia
• 1888 - Massachusetts
• 1889 - Wisconsin
• 1892 - United States of America
• 1901 - Denmark

Notes

See also

• Ballot
• Election fraud
• Voter suppression
• List of democracy and elections-related topics

External links

• A little bit of revision: Tasmania adopts the ballot in 1856
• Death of the secret ballot
• Secret Ballot, a film
• The Secret Ballot Comes To Utah (1878)
• Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Australian ballot

• Secrecy of the Vote, article from the ACE Project
• A handbook of electoral system Design from International IDEA

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