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The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, [1] is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. This system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.
In Australia, a voter anonymously registered is known as a silent elector. [1] To be a silent elector, a voter must satisfy the Divisional Returning Officer that their safety or that of any other person living in the same household would be at risk if their name and address were printed in the electoral register.
How the Australian Electoral Commission arrived at this opinion is unknown; it runs contrary to the opinions of Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick, who wrote that voters must actually mark the ballot paper and deposit that ballot into a ballot box, and Justice Blackburn who was of the opinion that casting an invalid vote was a violation of the Act.
Tim explained the Australian ballot has two key features: It's uniformly printed in advance of the election, by an electoral or governmental authority, and voters cast it in secret.
Tasmania adopted a secret ballot law on 7 February 1856. South Australia enacted a similar law two weeks after the Victorian law, on 2 April 1856. The South Australian system in 1858 required an elector to place an X against the name of his preferred candidate instead of crossing out unwanted names and for the ballot paper to show 'no other ...
Ballot being dropped into a ballot box during the Finnish presidential election. In a jurisdiction using an all-paper system, voters choose by marking a ballot or, as in the case of Israel and France, picking one premarked ballot among many. In most jurisdictions the ballots are preprinted with names of candidates and the text of the referendums.
Boothby's system was adopted for use in federal government elections in Australia. In the second half of the 19th century, the use of the secret ballot spread to the US and to Europe; in 1892, Grover Cleveland became the first US president elected by Boothby's system, universally referred to as 'the Australian ballot' for nearly a century.
the order of candidates on the ballot paper being decided randomly by the Australian Electoral Commission returning officer after the close of nominations and the commencement of pre-poll voting – candidates were previously listed by alphabetical order leading to parties nominating candidates with names beginning with A. [citation needed]