Overview

A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16th century. 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 pre-printed ballots to protect the secrecy of the votes. The voter casts their 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 organization (such as a trade union "holding a ballot" of its members). Etymology The word ballot comes from Italian ballotta, meaning a "small ball used in voting" or a "secret vote taken by ballots" in Venice, Italy.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“When annual elections end, there slavery begins.”
— John Adams, letter to George Wythe (April 1776).
““I am an experienced strategist. If you had elected me, you would have saved [the World Uyghur Congress] from the wrong direction. If you had not elected me, you would have saved me from my wife’s !””
— Erkin Ekrem, as quoted in "Why Uyghur Leaders Tell Jokes: A Healthy Demonstration of Independence" by Shöhret Hoshur, Bitter Winter (December 23, 2021)
“An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die. The holder of so-called high public office is always merely an extension of the hated ruling corporate class.”
— George L. Jackson, Blood in My Eye (1971), p. 72
“To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.”
— Abraham Lincoln, speech (c. May 18, 1858); in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 2, p. 454. Other uses of his contrast of ballots and bullets can be found in his message to Congress of July 4, 1861, "That ballots are the rightful, and peaceful, successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly, and constitutionally, decided, there can be no successful appeal, back to bullets" (vol. 4, p. 439); and in a letter to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863, "There can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet" (vol. 6, p. 410). In Arthur Brooks Lapsley, ed., The Writings of Abraham Lincoln (1905), there is a reconstruction, forty years later, of a speech to the first Republican state convention of Illinois, Bloomington, Illinois, May 29, 1856, in which this sentence appears: "Do not mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet" (vol. 2, p. 269). This lengthy reconstruction was not "worthy of serious consideration", in the opinion of Basler (Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 341).
“An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.”
— George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah.
“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”
— Author unknown, graffiti; reported in Mother Jones Magazine, Vol. 7, Num. 3, April 1982, p. 25.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Notable quotes

“When annual elections end, there slavery begins.”
— John Adams, letter to George Wythe (April 1776).
““I am an experienced strategist. If you had elected me, you would have saved [the World Uyghur Congress] from the wrong direction. If you had not elected me, you would have saved me from my wife’s !””
— Erkin Ekrem, as quoted in "Why Uyghur Leaders Tell Jokes: A Healthy Demonstration of Independence" by Shöhret Hoshur, Bitter Winter (December 23, 2021)
“An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die. The holder of so-called high public office is always merely an extension of the hated ruling corporate class.”
— George L. Jackson, Blood in My Eye (1971), p. 72
“To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.”
— Abraham Lincoln, speech (c. May 18, 1858); in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), vol. 2, p. 454. Other uses of his contrast of ballots and bullets can be found in his message to Congress of July 4, 1861, "That ballots are the rightful, and peaceful, successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly, and constitutionally, decided, there can be no successful appeal, back to bullets" (vol. 4, p. 439); and in a letter to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863, "There can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet" (vol. 6, p. 410). In Arthur Brooks Lapsley, ed., The Writings of Abraham Lincoln (1905), there is a reconstruction, forty years later, of a speech to the first Republican state convention of Illinois, Bloomington, Illinois, May 29, 1856, in which this sentence appears: "Do not mistake that the ballot is stronger than the bullet" (vol. 2, p. 269). This lengthy reconstruction was not "worthy of serious consideration", in the opinion of Basler (Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 341).
“An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.”
— George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah.
“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”
— Author unknown, graffiti; reported in Mother Jones Magazine, Vol. 7, Num. 3, April 1982, p. 25.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Overview

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

ballot

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ballot

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ballot across IJR

Overview

Notable quotes

Notable quotes

Overview

ballot across IJR