Ballot - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition ballot

Definition :

Ballot [fr. balla, Ital.; balle, Fr.], a little ball or ticket used in giving votes.

Means a small ball or ticket used for indicating a vote; the system of choosing persons for office by marking a paper or by drawing papers with names on them from a receptacle; the formal record of a person's vote, Black Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 138.

Means a system of voting involving secret votes, Monsanto PLC v. TGWU, (1987) 1 All ER 358; Post Office v. UCW, (1990) 3 All ER 199.

Means small ball, ticket or paper used in secret voting, Oxford Concise Dictionary, p. 89.

Means a ticket, paper, etc., by which a vote is registered, Webster Dictionary of Law, p. 113.

Means drawing of lots used in Parliament to determine the precedence among members desiring a share of Parliamentary time available for certain kinds of business, Parliamentary Dictionary, L.A. Abraham and S.C. Hawtrey, (1956), p. 21.

Ballot, in House of Commons ballots are held to allot the limited available in Parliament to private members, Parliamentary Practice, Eskine May, 22nd Edn. (1997).

Ballot, is held in Lok Sabha for determining the order of precedence of notices of Bill and Resolutions, half-an-hour discussions. Calling Attention Notices Questions including short notice questions, adjournment motions. Rules of Procedure and Conduct of (Rajya Sabha) Business in Council of States, 5th Edn., July 2000.

Ballot, is held through computerised auto-ballot systems in the presence of as far as possible one or more members and in case no sitting member is available in the presence of a senior officer of the Secretariat, Handbook for Members of Rajya Sabha, 2002, Edn., p. 11.

Ballot, is held every week by the Speaker to determine the right to choose the subject and initiate the discussion during the interval of half-an-hour between the moving of the daily adjournment motion and the compulsory adjournment of the House on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Parliamentary Practice, Erskine May, 22nd Edn., 1997, p. 325.

The word 'ballot' has been derived from the word 'ballota' which existed at a time when there was no question of any system of voting machine. The word 'ballot' in its strict sense would not include voting by the use of voting machines. Representation of the People Act, 1951 s. 59. A.C. Jose v. Sivan Pillai, (1984) 2 SCC 656: AIR 1984 SC 921 (928): (1984) 3 SCR 74.

To vote a person into an office or society by means of little balls which are put into either side of a box privately, according to the inclination of the voter, or by writing the names of the candidates upon small pieces of paper and rolling them up, so that they cannot be read, which are put into a box, and, when the time limited for the voting is over, are taken out one by one by an impartial person. as to ballots for the militia (now abolished), see MILITIA.

By the (English) Ballot Act, 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 33), Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Parliament,' secret voting by ballot papers (see s. 2 of the Act), showing the names and description of the candidates, each ballot paper having a number printed on the back, and having attached a counterfoil with the same number printed on the face. At the time of voting the ballot paper 'shall be marked on both sides with an official mark, and delivered to the voter within the polling station, and the number of each voter on the register is marked on the counterfoil.' The absence of the official mark from the face does not avoid the ballot paper, Ackers v. Howard, (1886) 16 QBD 739, though entire absence renders the presiding officer liable to an action for election lost, Pickering v. James, (1873) LR 8 CP 489. The system thus introduced into Parliamentary and Municipal Elections was applied to School Board Elections, County Council, District Council, and Parish Council Elections by various subsequent Acts. The form of voting is by making a cross opposite the name of that one of the candidates whom the voter votes for, the names of all the candidates being printed in alphabetical order. See Woodward v. Sarsons, (1875) LR 10 CP 733, in which, on a case stated by Lush, J., after hearing the Birmingham Municipal Election Petition, the mode of marking various disputed ballot papers was reviewed by the Court.

The Act was originally limited to expire in 1880, but was continued annually until 1918, when it was made permanent by the (English) Representation of the People Act, 1918.

By s. 31 (1)(c) of the (English) Workmen's Compensation Act, 1925 (c. 84), before a scheme in substitution for the provisions of that Act can be certified, a ballot of the workmen to whom the scheme is applicable must be taken.