Language Matters | ‘Polls’ and ‘ballots’ are the talk of the US election, but where do the words come from?

The word “poll”, from the Middle Dutch pol “top, summit”, documented in English from the early 1300s, originally referred to the head of a person or animal – the nape, the crown, or the part on which the hair grows – this meaning now archaic or regional, and chiefly for animals. From the mid-1300s, the sense of the prominent or visible part of a head in a crowd extended to mean a person or individual on a list.

Later, in the early 1600s, the sense of counting heads developed to mean the official counting of voters or votes cast in an election, chiefly when election by voice or show of hands was impractical, inconclusive or contested. This finally extended in the late-18th century to the current meaning: the action or process of voting, namely, an election, as well as the places where votes are cast, and, in the 20th century, a survey of public opinion.

In the Most Serene Republic of Venice of the 8th to 18th centuries, a ballotta – diminutive of balla “ball” in the regional variety of Veneto – a “little ball”, coloured white, black or gold, was used to cast a vote in their multi-stage system of electing the Doge di Venezia, the chief magistrate and leader.

The Venetian ballotta was borrowed into English in the mid-16th century, to mean, similarly, a small coloured ball placed in a container to register a vote, as well as to this system of voting.

The ballot could be other ball-like items, including pebbles (used in Athenian popular assembly from the 5th century BC), beans (tossed into a hat, as colonial Pennsylvanians did), or bullets. In some secret vote systems, a single black marble or cube, signifying “no” (where white balls meant “yes”) would be sufficient for rejecting an applicant or proposition – “blackballing”.