Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. The voting system involving ballots available only at official polling places, prepared at public expense, containing the names of all candidates, and marked in secret at the polling places.
WordNet
n. a vote in which each person's choice is secret by the totaled votes are public
Wikipedia
The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation and potential vote buying. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.
Secret ballots are used for many different voting systems. The most basic form may be blank pieces of paper, upon which each voter writes only his or her choice. Without revealing the votes to anyone, the voter would fold the ballot paper and place it into a sealed box, which is emptied later for counting. An aspect of secret voting is the provision of a voting booth to enable the voter to write on the ballot paper without others being able to see what is being written. Today, one of the most common forms of the secret ballot involves printed ballot papers with the name of the candidates or questions and respective checkboxes. Provisions are made at the polling place for the voters to record their preferences in secret. The ballots are designed to eliminate bias and to prevent anyone from linking voter to ballot.
A problem of privacy arises with moves to improve efficiency of voting by the introduction of postal voting and electronic voting. Some countries permit proxy voting, which some argue is inconsistent with voting privacy.
Secret Ballot is an Iranian film from 2001. It was directed by Babak Payami. The film covers a day in the life of an agent collecting votes on an island in Iran.
Usage examples of "secret ballot".
She is the one who convinced me that a universal ballot must also be a secret ballot for general elections.
At Paris, and in at least nine departments,[23] and in contempt of the law, is suppresses the secret ballot, the last refuge of timid conservatives, and imposes on each elector a verbal public vote, loud and clear, on his name being called.
There was simply no way of telling how anyone would cast his vote in a secret ballot.
The two hundred voting members elected the twelve stewards annually by secret ballot.
I am to dine with them today, and we are to have a grand poetic contest, a kind of sweepstake, to be judged by secret ballot.
So they pick up their fifteen, then take advantage of the secret ballot.