elections and voting

elections and voting

Greek

In the Greek states voting was used in councils, assemblies, and lawcourts; appointments were made by election or by allotment or sometimes by a combination of the two. In Athens and elsewhere psēphisma (from psēphos, ‘voting-stone’) became the standard word for a decree of the council (boulē) or assembly (ekklēsia), and cheirotonia (‘raising hands’) was used for elections; but in Athens (see democracy, Athenian) voting was normally by show of hands (not precisely counted) in the council and assembly both for decrees and for elections, but by ballot in the lawcourts. Ballots seem first to have been used on occasions when a count was necessary to ensure that a quorum was achieved, but by the end of the 5th cent. bc it had been realized that voting by ballot could be secret voting. In Sparta voting by acclamation survived to the...

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